Here is something that has been coming up every so often, and it often involves Xbox LIVE in some way. I don’t want to place this solely on them, but they are a VERY large part of this example.

Apparently there is an exploit in the demo of Shadow Complex, that allows you to play through the entire game. It’s not a hack. You don’t have to alter the source files in anyway. It is something a programmer at Chair Entertainment, or Epic Games messed up when they cut the full game down to a demo. They rushed it out, throwing in some kind of hack of their own, kept the full game’s content in the demo version download, and didn’t test it very well. Why they need to rush a demo version of a game, I don’t know, but I often don’t understand these sorts of things beyond it’s financial benefits. Though people don’t often accept something broken and untested; look at Vista.

Now this is completely their fault. It’s their problem. It’s their build of the game that they sent out to consumers. Sadly, if you find this bug, and don’t feel morally disordered, then there are some pretty harsh consequences. Here is the punishment according to Kotaku:

“Beyond leaderboard deletion, that means a Gamerscore reset across all games and a public outing as a cheater on Xbox.com and the Xbox 360 dashboard.”

Full Kotaku article HERE!

I’m not exactly sure what a public outing over Xbox entails. Is that like a stoning? To avoid this are people suppose to feel they are doing something morally wrong, by finding a bug in the game, and stop? I think they should cut their losses, fix the problem, and move on. Smiting the player for doing something that IS IN THE GAME is ridiculous and unwarranted. You would think when they threw the demo together, the main goal was to give them a taste of the game and not the whole thing. Quite the fail. They should thank these people for bringing it to their attention.

There are a few places in the ‘XboxLIVE Terms of Use’ that they try to cover their asses.

  • obtain (or try to obtain) any data from the Service or related hardware, except data that we intend to provide or make available to you;
  • use or distribute unauthorized cheats, macros, or scripts; or
  • exploit a bug, or make an unauthorized modification, to any software or data to gain unfair advantage in a game , contest, or promotion.

They likely didn’t intend to provide the full game data in the demo. I know if I do something to someone that I didn’t intend to I don’t punish them. That seems a bit backwards.

People distributing this get in trouble too? It sounds like bragging right to me. “Hey! I broke the game! Damn I’m smart!”

The last ‘exploit a bug’ sounds about right. What ever happened to the days where exploits just became part of the game, unless they chose to patch them out. It’s knowledge separated the beginners from the pros, and it just became a part of the game. Now that we’re in the Information Age, and fixing these sorts of things is much easier, we get punished for it. What about the bunny hop? Or ducking under a low block and then standing up only to slide through the wall? (Not sure if that’s a bug, but that’s a good point in itself)

I guess what we should take from this is that us gamers have to behave. We can only have fun the way the developer intended. If you don’t you will be stoned, and all your achievements you have earned by purchasing, and playing a game on their system will be taken away. I suggest everyone go out and enjoy this bug. When they smite you be sure to get vary angry, cancel your “cheater” account, and never return. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you Microsoft.

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