Hacking is generally looked at as an infamous achievement of sorts, with people who are able to accomplish this “art” being lauded for their efforts. However, the fact of the matter is that the perception of hacking being larger than life is something that needs to be dampened sooner rather than later. After all, it’s not like major hackers are performing a task that should be appreciated in the first place—more often than not, the majority of hackers prefer to perform these tasks for their own gain and nothing else. Perhaps the best way to illustrate just how selfish hackers can be would be to talk about one particular form of hacking that is pretty much universally frowned upon: video game hacking.
No matter what you might think about hacking as a whole, the truth that needs to be said is that video game hacking is disliked by every gamer who wishes to play a fair game. These hackers ruin the entire experience—for themselves and for others—by cheating and giving themselves an unfair advantage over the masses. It’s something that is always rightfully called out by both players and developers. This list will take a look at ten such instances of video game hacking that went a tad too far and attained a lot of mainstream coverage as a result.
10 An Entire Community Sued By Tecmo
Koei Tecmo might not exactly have the most stellar reputation on the gaming scene—after all, they’re most known for creating fighting games that feature scantily-clad women. However, even this developer is averse to hacking of a lewd nature.
Hackers that messed around with the game files to add nude skins for characters in Dead Or Alive were quickly shut down by Tecmo, with one particularly high-profile incident netting them 2 million yen in damages!
9 Blizzard Cracking Down On Starcraft II Hackers
When it comes to robust and balanced multiplayer experiences, nothing comes close to the thoroughness of Blizzard. So, obviously, this company would very much be on their toes if they even catch so much as a whiff of any shady or nefarious practices.
Upon noticing that certain people were hacking Starcraft II in order to get an unfair advantage over other players, Blizzard quickly shut them down and banned the players as well. Serves them right.
8 A Streamer Showing Off His Aimbot On Overwatch Got Permabanned
Weird flex… but not okay. Since we’re already on the topic of Blizzard and their stringent nature when it comes to balancing games, you’d very much be right in assuming that this zero-tolerance policy for hacking goes beyond Starcraft II.
An Overwatch streamer who was showing off his aimbot on Twitch got permabanned mid-stream! Ain’t that some poetic justice.
7 PS3 Hacking Gone Wrong
Sony is quite adamant about securing their console from any hacking attempts, and this can be seen in the extreme steps they took to sue a hacker who was trying to get Linux back up on the PlayStation 3.
However, the hacker was his own version of extreme as well. He legitimately gave out a statement which entailed that the only way he would stop hacking was if he passed away. Hacking is genuinely a lifestyle for some people, and this proves it.
6 Hacking RuneScape To Pay Real-Life Debts
Talk about a money-making machine. We all know and identify with RuneScape as the MMORPG of our childhood, but what most people fail to notice is that this game was a great way to get some of that sweet cheddar.
Look no further than a hacker who decided to hack the game, obtain incredibly rare items, and sell them for real money in the game! He actually managed to get 2,500-3,500 Euros by doing this, which is no small amount.
5 Shutting Down Xbox Live & PSN During The Holiday Season
Boy, this was one heck of a scene. Most people would remember this dark time in video gaming when both Xbox Live and PSN were taken down by one solitary person. This person was later tried in court and found guilty of over 50,000 offenses!
His punishment was—unbelievably enough—just a 2-year suspended sentence. If anything, this attack revealed just how shoddy the entire network infrastructure of these two networks was.
4 Unlocking All Achievements In Gears Of War 2
For Xbox players, their GamerScore matters a lot. People fight tooth and nail to get these scores as high up as possible… so it’s understandable as to why a hack for Gears Of War 2 that provided a gamer with every achievement in the game attained so much traction.
However, Microsoft was hot on the heels of gamers who used this hack, giving them a rather fitting punishment. If a person using this hack was detected, then their entire GamerScore was reset to zero. Ouch.
3 30,000 Hackers Banned From Playing H1Z1
H1Z1 used to be all the rage at one point, with players numbering in the tens of thousands playing at one go. So, it was inevitable that cheaters would also be a part of the mix.
However, the developers were having none of it, banning a load of players who were detected using cheats. A whopping 30,000 people were banned as a result of these aggressive manoeuvers.
2 Mining Coins On FIFA & Selling Them To Other Players
FIFA is one of the most popular and competitive video game series around. This, coupled with the behemoth that is FIFA Ultimate Team—which uses in-game currency—meant that hackers were bound to enter the scene.
One such hacker that was selling coins to other FIFA players was caught and sued by EA, such was the egregious nature of this offense.
1 GTA V’s Cool Response To Players Hacking Their Single-Player Cars In The Game
GTA Online was an absolute revolution that went a long way in ensuring that the landscape of multiplayer gaming was altered as we know it. However, even this revolution wasn’t free of its fair share of cheaters.
One such offense involved people bringing their fancy single-player cars into multiplayer mode. However, Rockstar the perfect response to this: if players entered the vehicle, then the car would explode there and then. If that wasn’t humiliating enough as is, players would also receive a dunce cap upon revival to show the entire gaming world that they were nothing more than a cheater.
NEXT: GTA 5: 10 Best Mods For Realistic Gameplay
