User blog:MadCrayolaz/How Hacking Created a Volatile Community

Since the dawn of video games, people have strived to find ways to exploit the game. Glitches, bugs, and even hacks were all used to give the player an advantage in the game, whether it is for fun, or to get an unfair edge.

When the ability to play video games over the internet became a reality, a whole new sector of hacking emerged. These multiplayer hacks would ultimately be used by players seeking significant advantages in the online arena. This has caused games to take preventative measures against this, coming up with proprietary hack shields. However, there always seem to be some hacks able to get past these measures, so there is a constant war being waged between game developers and hack developers.

Hacks have been a major reason why some games have failed, while others have turned the community against each other. A primary example of this is Combat Arms. The game's community has become a jaded group of people. Many players have quit since the game's conception due to the prevalence of hackers in the game. On top of a pile of other issues the game is plagued with, the community has become so sour to hacks that it is commonplace for a person to accuse others of hacking, with generally no basis for the accusation. The hacks have become so well known that they have received nicknames, such as "OPK", and "Chams". They have created a term for a player who accuses people of hacking: hackusators.

Many players have called out Nexon, Combat Arms’ creator, on their inaction regarding hackers, past and present. They haven’t helped themselves with their lax actions taken against purported hackers. Their anti-hack measures have been lacking. Some things they have done to try to stop hacking have been buying the rights to use a hack shield from AhnLabs, and creating their own proprietary guard, named BlackCipher. Neither of these has ever been effective in stopping hacking for more than an hour after an update to them. They have attempted to save face by displaying how many people they claim to have blocked every week. However, there hasn’t been any noticeable change in the amount of hackers present.

Nexon continues to have issues with hackers in nearly every game they host, their most popular being Maplestory. Their support team is horrid; often times they will close the ticket without any formal response, or if they do answer, it will be something along the lines of, “We’re sorry for the inconvenience. However, our support department is currently overloaded, so we are closing this ticket.” They ignore tickets for multiple months.

However, Nexon doesn't have the worst track record. Nexon has taken Game Anarchy, a prevalent hacking community, to court. This is one of the few times a game company has done so, and sets the precedent for even more cases like this. Hopefully, this will set a new bar for Nexon.

If you'd like to read more about the court case, here is a link to Entertainment Law Digest's synopsis.