Cheating : gaining advantage in videogames / Mia Consalvo.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : to cheat or not to cheat : is that even the question? -- I. A cultural history of cheating in games -- 1. Creating the market : Easter eggs and secret agents -- 2. Guidance goes independent : the rise of strategy guide publishers -- 3. Genies, sharks, and chips : the technological side to cheating -- II. Game players -- 4. Gaining advantage : how videogame players define and negotiate cheating -- 5. The cheaters -- 6. Busting punks and policing players : the anticheating industry -- 7. A mage's chronicle : cheating and life in Vana'diel -- III. Capital and game ethics -- 8. Capitalizing on paratexts : gameplay, ethics, and everyday life.

"In Cheating, Mia Consalvo investigates how players choose to play games and what happens when they can't always play the way they'd like. She explores a broad range of player behavior, including cheating (alone and in groups); examines the varying ways that players and industry define cheating; describes how the game industry itself has helped systematize cheating; and studies online cheating in context in an online ethnography of Final Fantasy XI."--BOOK JACKET.