Introduction
Hi, it’s been a while. This’ll be a different type of blog, it’ll mainly be a written one about my thoughts and personal experiences regarding the whole “Game hacking” scene. I hold some strong opinions within this blog that quite a lot of people might not agree with, that’s okay but I’d like to let everyone know, regardless, that this is just my own opinions, you don’t have to agree with them but I’d love for you to read it anyway.
Game Hacking as an Art Form: A Personal Perspective
To put it simply, to me, game hacking is an art. It’s one of the few ways where I can express myself, with every line of code I write or new theory I come up with - it’s all a way for my mind to create art. Every hour of my day I typically spend studying or writing; either I’m studying the Windows internals or writing new projects that will put my knowledge to the test.
To you, the reader, you might think doing this constantly is very boring - I’ll disagree. The reason why I disagree is because there was a point in time in my life where I had nothing. I had no urge to study or learn anything new, and it was after recognizing that fault that I thought I’d turn my life around. I began studying constantly - I learned at a slow rate, but it still meant everything to me. With each successful breakthrough, I felt something - for once, I was proud of myself.
My own ignorance eventually caught up to me and let me become complacent; I thought I was smart, and for that, I was humbled. I reached a roadblock, a blockage so beyond me that I felt hopeless. I remember thinking to myself if I should give up and move on to something else. It was in those days that I remembered why I had initially started. I got back to studying constantly, and in that time, I learned some of the most entertaining things. It sparked a new interest that I will talk about later.
Fun fact: most of the blogs I have published were written in the very early stages of my studying. Looking back at them now, they appear so trivial, and I’m almost embarrassed to keep them up, haha.
See, the main joy, or thrill, I personally get from game hacking isn’t specifically enjoying what I have written per se, but rather it’s the entire cat-and-mouse game. I’ve seen so many people write about how game hacking nowadays is just a huge cat-and-mouse game and how it’s useless or futile. If you ask me, they couldn’t be more wrong.
The whole idea of constantly going toe-to-toe every day with some of the smartest people is probably the best part of this all. Imagine having to work against someone who is smarter than you, and you know the only way you can continue to work against that person is to get smarter. See, when you’re put in a situation like this, you’re inevitably forced to adapt and learn newer things. This might take a while, but it doesn’t matter. If you convince yourself enough that this is the only choice you have, you’ll be much prouder of yourself at the end of the day.
That’s why I love it - the dopamine rush of getting past security features, only to know that it’s inevitable that there will be more put in place. And when that happens, you restart the cycle. It’s a never-ending journey of learning more and more, and that’s what makes me fall in love with it. Art displayed in the forms of bypasses and smart techniques.
A New Interest: Software Security
I mentioned in the last paragraph that I had discovered a new interest. It’s somewhat contradictory to my entire point, but this newfound joy was actually in software security - the idea of protecting software, in this case games, from tampering and cheating.
See, the idea of developing cheats is intriguing, but it’s definitely immoral. It might sound weird to hear, but I, contrary to what I said earlier, am actually against the idea of cheating. I think it’s such a boring thing to do; it can only be entertaining for so long before you end up ruining the entire game for yourself and others. I’ve been in games before where I encounter a cheater, and it actually just annoys me. Typically, when people encounter a cheater and nothing happens, they tend to start looking for cheats themselves. I don’t like that.
It was shortly after working against an anti-cheat for the first time that I began to realize that what security software services do is so smart, so cool. That was my exact reaction. I started learning on the side - I would reverse engineer existing security software and look into what they’re doing. On top of this, I’d look at existing cheats, reverse engineer them, and look into mistakes they’ve made that I could use to detect them. This has become one of my favorite things to do as of late.
I don’t believe I’m particularly good at what I do, but I know for a fact I enjoy it. I don’t think there will be a day anytime soon where I will stop doing what I do; this entire studying journey I’m on is what makes me feel alive. People treat what they do as a chore, but I don’t think I could ever see this as a chore.
I remember speaking to one of my friends who works for a popular company’s anti-cheat. I was frustrated because I was confused why a company wasn’t detecting something very trivial that a cheat was doing. He then asked me how I would go about detecting it. After explaining, he informed me that I wasn’t thinking about all the edge cases. He told me how what I had explained could potentially flag legitimate software. I saw what he meant, and it was then that I realized that I was, once again, being ignorant - I was expecting it to be easy to just hyper-focus on something without any side effects.
When this conversation had ended, I started really looking further into the Windows Internals, attempting to figure out how I could potentially differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate software. There’s still a long journey ahead of me, and that is something that I will constantly remain on. One day, I’ll look back at this blog and laugh.
The Functionalist Theory: Preface
It’s actually interesting to note that if we look at this from a broader perspective, we could apply the functionalist theory of how crime is needed within a society to function. To begin with, let’s outline why Émile Durkheim believed that crime is needed within a society and how this can apply to a niche scenario like cheating in a game. There will, of course, be similarities as well as differences because of the nature of this field.
Durkheim believed that crime brings people together in order to defeat a common enemy. What he meant by this is that law-abiding citizens will group together to defeat the enemy, in this case being the criminals. This is good for society as it increases conformity. Another thing that Durkheim mentions is that crime allows us, the typical law-abiding citizens, to understand which norms and values within a society are acceptable and which aren’t. What he means by this is that crime will - more often than not - inevitably reinforce which actions are considered moral and correct, and vice versa.
Now that we have briefly explained what the theory is based on, let’s apply it to game hacking where the security software represents the law and the cheaters represent the criminals. We’ll split the future points into two perspectives: that of the user and that of the developer.
The Functionalist Theory: User
In the modern day and age, we know how divided the userbase can be in gaming communities. If we apply the first point we made earlier about how it could bring users together, it’s actually almost mirrored in how we can say the law-abiding citizens are the non-cheaters, and the common enemy (being the criminal) is the cheater. Understanding how everyone typically dislikes cheaters, we could say that their dislike for cheaters will unite the community. This could foster a strong community bond and help the userbase to work together in creating a system for minimizing the cheater community, which could work well for the game developers as it would definitely make the reporting system more useful in games.
A lot of cheaters go undocumented, meaning that players won’t report them, perhaps thinking it’s useless. But when an entire community has the standard of dealing with cheaters by reporting them, this would make this feature itself more prominent. Attempting to apply the second point of how it outlines what’s right and wrong, when the average player sees how annoying it is or, better yet, when a player is punished for cheating, it will often reinforce that whole idea of what’s right and what’s wrong. Especially considering how intense the punishments for cheating have become, nobody really wants to lose everything they’ve worked for just to cheat in a game. The cheating scene is often scummy; trust is not a huge factor there, and that can also work as a deterrent more than anything.
The Functionalist Theory: Developer
Now, here’s where it becomes more apparent than ever why this field of programming is required. Think back to how I mentioned it being a “cat-and-mouse” game between the Game Hacker and the Security team. Let’s modify this view a little and think of it more as an “arms race”. With every new innovation on either the security side or the game hacking side of any product, this will ALWAYS lead the other side to have to improve, adapt, or in other words, innovate, to work back up to either match or surpass the former.
What I mean by this is, imagine if X (being the cheat) has now created a new method to bypass something that Y (being the security software) created. Y will now, inevitably, have to create a new method to stop this, which in the end will lead to Y becoming a much better security software. We cannot increase Y to its maximum potential if X does not exist; this is just the nature of how such software becomes viable for security.
Game hacks will always drive innovation in game security, just as game security will always drive innovation within the game hacking industry. It may seem counterintuitive that we need game hacks for anti-cheat security teams to function, but that’s honestly the beautiful reality of it. With the need for software like this, we create jobs for developers and allow society to continue while expanding the need for new professions within society.
Security, whether for software or anything else, is probably one of the most important needs for anything in the world, so why should it not be just as important for software like games? Game hackers, as much as you might hate them, will, more often than not, find vulnerabilities or security flaws that have been overlooked. Once these are abused or reported (either or), they will help the security product grow regardless.
The Mind of The Game Hacker
This is where it becomes a bit mundane, sadly due to the current state of most developers behind Game Hacks. This is because of the lost nature of what Game Hacking is truly about. Many “Companies” that run these Game Hacks nowadays only have profit in mind. This is not how it should be; people should revert to the idea of pursuing knowledge more than anything. The greed that corrupts them will lead to their inevitable shutdown and their userbase losing their money.
I remember talking to one of my friends in real life; he asked me a simple question: “As a person, do you see yourself striving for knowledge so you can do everything yourself, or do you see yourself outsourcing work at some point to other developers in order to maintain a business in this field?” I responded by telling him, if I outsource everything else to others, what makes me special anymore? I enjoy doing everything myself; the joy of being stuck and knowing there is something new I will have to learn is what makes me enjoy living.
People see their lack of knowledge as an issue; I see it as a reason to continue learning. Running away from learning would make my position here futile; I’d have no reason to continue. I’m on the journey of learning, not the journey of profit. If it weren’t for bills, I wouldn’t care at all for the money.
People resort to copy-and-pasting code they don’t understand; this is where it goes wrong. The community is filled with many who have no idea what they’re doing. They see it as a cash-grab community, and that honestly upsets me. This is what pushed me to software security more than anything.
If you’re someone who fits this description, I highly suggest you stop. There is no future in this - you will, inevitably, run out of the money that you are, essentially, stealing. You might think that the money is good, but it will run out, and when it does, you’ll be out of options, stuck living in the past. This is no way to live.
This art was created as an expression. You are not outcast from it; you can really experience the true greatness of how far this can continue going, but only if you devote yourself to learning. This is not a 100m race; this is something that becomes a part of who you are and can only grow as much as YOU, as a person, grow. Everyone has the ability to learn. You can do it if you try - I promise you that.
The Future of Game Hacking
It’s difficult to predict the future, so take what I say with a pinch of salt as these are just my own thoughts on how it could go. The way I see it, Game Hacking will always continue to exist; from previous points, we can see how it actually exists on a broader level. It’s needed, but will there be a day where all cheats are wiped out? Most likely not. Software Security products will definitely become stronger, but there will always be those who are determined on the journey of true security who will find ways around it.
Though, you should also note this - most Game Hackers will inevitably switch to the other side. This is because it’s just how it goes. Game Hacking is very volatile; it’s not a way to live in most cases. Any success story you see from it is just a huge outsourcing ring. There is no real glory in it; it’s like a drug for those who need it. These companies don’t actually care about you, the user; they just want your money. Life is very difficult in most cases, and nothing lasts forever.
There will always continue to be a new developer, and if you’re reading this coming from one of my communities, there will always be a new person just like me, if not better. So you shouldn’t attach yourself too much - simply work with the trends. For as long as I’m here, I’ll always love what I do and love everything about it, everyone I’ve met because of it, and whoever I will continue to meet. This has been the greatest four years of my life and hopefully a few more years to come. I’m getting old, haha.
Conclusion
I really hope you enjoyed this blog; it’s a new style that I’m hoping to get more into. I love expressing myself through these written works; it really helps, and it’s like a diary to me. I’m also going to be working on many new security blogs very soon, so I hope you also tune in for them. Thank you for reading this blog; this is something I’ve felt I had to write for a while now.