and can change weak units into the most advanced units in the game.

You can change the amount of gold you have, the number of troops/tanks/planes/etc. The underlying concept is this: if you can hack into the game – typically flash based – in the browser and determine the codes/variables that govern the various game elements, you can change these at will. We will explore this concept further in the ‘meta game’ section below. This is a large part of the draw that these games have, and one thing that we will examine in this article is the notion that cheating may simply be part and parcel of it, just as it may be a part of life. In most MMOG’s (massively multiplayer online games), there are really two kinds of game going on: the game itself, and what we will call the ‘meta game’, which is the very human business of forging alliances, influencing other players, and so forth. German team(s), Pakistani team(s) and so on), and then blur over time as alliances shift and friendships form etc. Teams will form, mostly (but not necessarily) along national lines (e.g. Large communities of hardcore gamers have formed over some of the most successful games, and large numbers of gamers can end up spending large swaths of time playing, attaining higher and higher levels and becoming very powerful, and some gamers will spend large amounts of money on in game items and powerups. In fact, while active users on Facebook seems to have plateaued or is stabilizing, growth in the number of Facebook gamers seems to continue unabated. According to figures from Facebook released in early 2013, more than 250 million people play every month, and the number keeps growing. With its ability to connect large numbers of gamers together across the globe, Facebook is the ideal multiplayer gaming platform. It may be that “War Commander”, which is the case study here, is a unique case and it may be that strategy MMO’s might have different dynamics than other games (and if so, please let us know in the comments section). However, it may well be the case that the in-game dynamics and the response of the developers to cheating in their games varies, and that the phonemenon plays itself out differently from game to game. What we are claiming is that insofar as the main ‘cheating engine’ tools used in Facebook games support most or all games on Facebook, this problem is pervasive and endemic. Together, we have witnessed the various forms of Facebook cheating evolve, and have had discussions over the implications of these to the Facebook gaming in general.Ī valid question is whether this discussion of cheating in Facebook games applies to some or most Facebook games. An avid Facebook gamer, my friend has spent an average of 8 hours per day for more than two years playing “War Commander”, and other Facebook games.

This article is based on the experiences of a friend and colleague, whom I will call Adam (not his real name). How this article came to be (and a disclaimer): This article aims to shed light on why this is so, as well as the implications of cheating on Facebook gaming in general. And while you would think that a cheat-filled playing field might spell the death of a game, with gamers deserting it in droves, this does not seem to be the case. What is clear, however, is that cheating is so rampant that ‘legitimate’ players, in order to remain competitive – or simply to stay in the game – have to either engage in it or at least devise ways to deal with it, such as investing time and energy in detecting and reporting cheaters, and in some cases spending thousands of dollars trying to fight hackers off. Strangely, these cheats somehow manage to make their way from the individual browser into the game’s central database, and seem to be either hard to detect by the developers, or they simply look the other way, perhaps having accepted that cheating activity is part and parcel of Facebook gaming. These are designed to change variables such as increasing one’s gold or resources, or accelerating repairs or upgrades so that they take seconds rather than weeks. Cheating on Facebook games is a hard subject to tackle because it takes several forms, from the more ‘acceptable’ form of creating several accounts (which is not the one we are concerned about here) to the proliferation of ‘cheat engines’ that mostly operate locally, on the user’s individual machine.

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