The Modded Controller Underground: Cheating is the Cancer of Online Gaming
November 22nd, 2008 | Written by Alex Marra | Topic: Play
One day, many years ago, a programmer playing Halo: Combat Evolved became frustrated by his lack of skill. He died over and over again, so rather than practice until he could hold his own, he – as many programmers do – asked himself how could automate the experience. And thus, the infamous AimBot was born.
AimBots have been a thorn in the sides of many noble gamers for almost a decade. Talentless players have used them to bring misery upon their innocent foes; foes primarily out to have a good time themselves.
Unfortunately for the honest among us, AimBots are the least of our worries now. A plague of modded controllers have now entered circulation among gamers. These controllers are used to center on a target’s head, pull the trigger, and move on. Others are used to make the buttons easier and faster to push, or are modified with a rapid-fire button (like an old SNES controller) to make mowing down hordes of foes incredibly easier.
Need proof?
Check out this image we lifted from a controller modification website:
Included with the description of this particular product was:
Everyone has been asking for a Rapid Fire that was “TRULY” universal, and contained our famous Rapid Fire for Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, and our new, first released, undetectable Rapid Fire for Call of Duty 5 World at War.
Just copying and pasting that made me cringe.
The worst part about this epidemic? There is no cure. The Big Three have been trying their best to detect these controller mods, but as their just a relatively new threat, they don’t have many systems in place to detect these modded controllers.
What can you do about this? Currently, not much. In favor of not turning this into a McCarthy witch hunt-type ordeal, reporting every player as a cheater isn’t a good idea. However, if you are absolutely sure that the player is a cheater, reporting them is possibly your best and only option. Here are some helpful tips to point out the cheaters:
- The player can, in say a game of Halo 3, shoot off pistol rounds like it’s a Thompson sub-machine gun.
- The player is extremely disrespectful, racist, or prejudice.
- After a few games, the player has achieved near 100% accuracy in all their shots and are rarely ever killed.
Though there is little you can do about the cheaters, keep in mind that so far only a small number of players have acquired these controllers. The Big Three are also working on new ways to detect cheaters using modded controllers, so as with people trying to use modded video games to play online, hopefully the threat of cheaters using modded controllers will not last long.
Cheating isn’t new; it’s been around since the creation of video games as developers have put in cheat codes to prolong the duration of their games. Don’t feel like jacking an army tank from a military base in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas? Enter a combination of buttons and one will drop out of the sky. Want to mow down everything in your path in Call of Duty 4? Unlock the cheat “Infinite Ammo” and fill your enemies full of lead.
Being a cheater can bring a new, positive air to the game and is perfectly acceptable as a part of a person’s single player game. But these people who cheat are ruining online gaming for everyone because it completely removes the single most important ingredient in online gaming: every single person’s own level of skill.
Why do cheaters use AimBots and modded controllers, which play the game for them? E-Rep? Enjoyment from the misery inflicted on others? The inability to enjoy a game for the sheer fun of it? Or a lacking sense of purpose in life? Unfortunately, like the question of how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never truly know why cheaters do what they do.
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Comment by Adrian on the November 23rd, 2008 at 1:10 am
“Why do cheaters use AimBots and modded controllers, which play the game for them? E-Rep? Enjoyment from the misery inflicted on others? The inability to enjoy a game for the sheer fun of it? Or a lacking sense of purpose in life? Unfortunately, like the question of how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never truly know why cheaters do what they do.”
err… to win? Why do pro athletes use drugs? To win. When you set up something competitive, some people just like to win at something rather than enjoying it. When someone hates a game because they get a 1 win – 20 loss record online they decide that by cheating they get a better record and enjoy the game more. It’s just human nature for some people to want to win at all costs. It’s not right, but some people don’t care.
Comment by moi on the November 23rd, 2008 at 6:12 am
This modding thing seems to be more of a xbox 360 problem. I’m sure that someone has made modded controllers to the PS3 but deffinetly they are not so popular..
Comment by Dan on the November 23rd, 2008 at 8:46 am
Cheating, especially in a competitive sense, has been occurring since biblical times. The concept of cheating is not new or isolated to video games.
As Adrian stated earlier, most people want to win. Personally, I find winning is kind of cool but not at the expense of enjoying what I am playing. I believe that society has generated a sense that some people feel that they “need” to win. It is like an over-whelming hunger that overtakes rational thought. They no longer care about the means, as long as they get to thier interpretation of a successful end. Integrity, respect, and courtesy are set aside so that they can have the feeling of being “a winner”. While this may help your gamer score, the enjoyment of playing video games is destroyed. They no longer play games for amusement and entertainment, but to attempt to give meaning to thier own existence and cover up thier own person short-comings.
A recent example is Gears of War 2. The single player game has a very good story and character development, beautiful graphics, and a wonderful sound score. However, these individuals will never experience and appreciate the work that was put into this aspect of the game as they will more than likely never play the single player portion of the game. And if they do, it is merely to get the achievement score and will not allow themselves to connect to the charaters or the story. It is sad…
Comment by David Macphail on the November 23rd, 2008 at 9:33 am
Why do cheaters do what they do? Because they suck at games, of course. Theese people have a lot of spare time on their hands (Most likely because they don’t have any friends or social activities besides online gaming) and so when the one thing they get to do with other people ends with them getting shot and killed every few minutes they use their spare time to mod controllers so they stop sucking.
It’s just too bad theese people can’t mod themselves to be more socially acceptable, then instead of cheating they might actually get out of the house once in awhile………..
Comment by Head In Jar Man on the November 23rd, 2008 at 12:56 pm
* The player can, in say a game of Halo 3, shoot off pistol rounds like it’s a Thompson sub-machine gun.
* The player is extremely disrespectful, racist, or prejudice.
* After a few games, the player has achieved near 100% accuracy in all their shots and are rarely ever killed.
#1 halo 3 has fire limits so mods dont make pistols, or any other weapon fire noticeably faster.
#2 the second fact doesnt even make sense for having mods
#3 Chances are the person is just better than you. There are no aimbots on the xbox 360, you said that they where doing it with controllers and then posted a picture of rapid fire.
Sounds to me like you keep on getting beat and you just want to blame it on somebody.
Comment by Head in Jar Man on the November 23rd, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Im obviously an idiot who doesnt know what i am talking about…..
But seriously though, Mods and glitches are in every game out there, PS3 and #60 and Wii, they ruin the online aspects of the game, I’ve seen games where players during the whole game search for glitches, especially Gears of war 2, CoD5, and Halo 3. Some kids are just incredible at gaming while other are just incredible at cheating.
Comment by Guy Oreilly on the November 23rd, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I’m pretty sure Aimbots predate Halo considering I remember them in UT99 which was in uh 1999?
Comment by Mr. G on the November 23rd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I suppose it’s OK for offline play, but not online play. But I guess Micro$oft are working on something to sort this out. And them controllers are not cheap either…
Comment by Danielle on the November 23rd, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Haha, just agreeing with head in jar man… Srsly? People being really good at Halo just means their obv. cheaters, can’t be that they have skill and practice a bunch XD And if they’re racist, might as well think they’re a cheater too. Not that they aren’t horrible people, but that’s honestly no reason to think that they’re modding .. Faulty logic.
Comment by GamerModz on the November 23rd, 2008 at 6:57 pm
First off, Rapid Fire and “macro’s” is what we do. We modify controller to perform these so a player can do them with “ease”.
Now, I know a lot of you are saying “Boo, Cheaters!”. In reality, many of you that play games on the PC usung Macro’s. So why is it so bad that we do it for a game console?
Turbo controllers have been on the market since the beginning of game consoles hitting the market. Turbo is Rapid Fire. Why aren’t you bashing those company’s? Why are you bashing us because we develop Rapid Fire specifically setup for certain games.
Lets all be adult, and realize that “A game is just a GAME”. It is nothing more. It is for fun.
We do not make AIMBOTS.
Comment by Head In Jar Man on the November 23rd, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Thanx asshole for pretending to be me, real mature.
Gamermodz, i totally agree with you, people saying that aimbots can be achieved with a controller modification are stupid and need to research what they post a topic about first.
Comment by Head In Jar Man on the November 23rd, 2008 at 7:33 pm
This post is a joke.
Comment by Head In Jar Man on the November 23rd, 2008 at 7:54 pm
This post is freaking awesome!
Comment by GamerModz on the November 24th, 2008 at 1:19 am
So, people should have there Xbox banned from Xbox live after they go to Walmart, Best Buy, or Circuit City and purchase a MadCatz turbo controller? What about the logitec macro controller? Neither one of these companies are "fly by night", and neither are we. We have been doing this for years.
There is always going to be easier ways to do things. I make it easier to do buttom combinations, and pulling the trigger really fast.
The only people that cry about this are the ones that take a game to seriously.
My personal opinion is that it makes the game fun again. When you get to do things with ease that other people struggle to do like firing semi-automatic pistols like a machine gun, well, that's just flat out fun!!
Comment by deester on the November 23rd, 2008 at 10:30 pm
the game dev spend alot of time and money to make the game fair and BALANCED. (can you read BALANCED ) when you add a modded controller in it makes the game unbalanced, for the other players. In the game there is a way to confirm a player is using a modded controller, they should be banned for life from xbox live or the service they are on at the time. blacklist there consoles where it can no longer go online. make it not worth cheating and it will stop
and then these fly by night mod companies will go away.
Comment by JayTee on the November 24th, 2008 at 9:49 am
No need to try to imitate someone else, let someone voice their opinion they have the right.
Comment by Wii Rock Band on the December 11th, 2008 at 9:16 am
I remember this garbage going on 15 years ago in 8 bit gaming systems. Some hack would rig a controller to give him rapid fire and would destroy all top scores. I guess bad habits never die!
Comment by currami on the January 25th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Cheating destroys the game and everything that is good and powerful about online gaming. when Gears of War 2 came out we were very excited about the online MP. I rushed through the campaign as I often do when I am anticipating the MP so much. And it was great for about 3 weeks. right aroubd or shortly after Christmas, perhaps when the 360 concoles went so cheap is wehn everything went sour. I have played in so many glitch matches it's not even funny.
Comment by currami on the January 25th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Now I don't play GOW2 MP except for Horde live which has no cheating that I have witnessed. Perhaps because there is only 1 player team. In any case cheating ruins the game for the other player as it does for the cheater as well. Why artificially inflate your rank so that you can;t even compete at that level wothout cheating? If it seems stupid it is. but that doesn't change things. I think cheaters should get banned, there IP addresses also banned. This way they can't simply resign as another gamer tag.
Comment by çöp konteyneri on the May 26th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Thank you always like sharing more then look good.
Comment by su deposu on the May 26th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
I did not understand the subject even
Comment by forex on the June 9th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Cheating has been around since the very beginning of gaming as well. But seasoned gamers rarely cheat
Comment by kulak burun boğaz on the June 10th, 2009 at 9:12 am
the game dev spend alot of time and money to make the game
Comment by zincir on the June 12th, 2009 at 11:15 am
To Head an Jar, you my sir are a dumb person. Get of the internet kid
Comment by kabin on the July 3rd, 2009 at 8:47 am
comments on what the friend said later stupid I could not understand very much.
Comment by Mike Curran on the July 3rd, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Frankly anything that gives you an artificial advantage against the other team is a form of cheating. Whether it's something that XBL will catch and punish you for or not is a different story. Personally I don't see the point. The joy of winning the match is so lessened when you have to cheat to get there. Typically my friends and I win at least 80% of our matches when we get host. We win about 50 percent when we do not have host. In other words we rock. Without cheating that is. It makes it fun and keeps it competitive. When we do go up against cheaters we file complaints as all of you should. Cheating does eventually catch up to you. In life and gaming… Enjoy
Comment by John Jones on the July 21st, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I completely disagree with what you just said. I have a mod that i made as a project and on average i do better without the mod.
Comment by Mike Curran on the July 21st, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Then how are you disagreeing with me? I commented that anything that gives you an artificial advantage is cheating. If your mod does not give you an artificial advantage then it simply does not qualify. What I think we are focused on here is the "rapid fire pistol" type of hack, which when used properly can take out a 5 person team within a matter of about 3 seconds. There are others, but you get the point. If you have a hack that barely gives you the same ability as without it, then you clearly don't fit in this category.
Comment by Shock Master on the July 26th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
"Turbo controllers have been on the market since the beginning of game consoles hitting the market. Turbo is Rapid Fire. Why aren't you bashing those company's? Why are you bashing us because we develop Rapid Fire specifically setup for certain games."
The difference is that the turbo controllers being produced legitimately do not have modded triggers. Playing with a MadCatz or some other third party turbo controller is totally legal in online play, because they are licensed by Microsoft. The modded controllers being produced by fags like yourself are not licensed and are totally against the xbox live code of conduct, and you will be banned if you're caught using them in online play…
"Lets all be adult, and realize that "A game is just a GAME". It is nothing more. It is for fun. "
Why don't you be an adult, and realize that IT IS FOR FUN, BUT WHEN YOU START HAVING FUN AT THE EXPENSE OF ANOTHER'S GOOD TIME, THEN IT'S WRONG…
Comment by prefabrik evler on the August 9th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
This way they can't simply resign as another gamer tag.
Comment by Andy on the December 15th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
I only just found out why it was that regardless of the accurancy and speed of target accusition that I would always got toasted by certain players, who could scream across the battlefield and kill me witha knive kill, when I unloaded a full clip into their sorry assess.
Call me old school, but it is low down cheating and frustrates the hell out of me..
To all the modded controller user out there – kiss my fat ass!
Comment by andy on the December 15th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Yeah! kiss my ass too…
Comment by eli the pozer on the December 23rd, 2009 at 9:33 pm
personally a rapidfire doesn't give that much of an upper hand in games like cod4. that game is all about who spots who first, if you stick to staying in the shadows and coming from behind, you can kill a camper with a rapidfire any day of the week.
Comment by prefabrik on the December 27th, 2009 at 11:06 am
nıce very nıceeeeeeeeee
Comment by I AM JUST WONDERING on the January 5th, 2010 at 4:39 am
Does Xbox Live catch people with rapid fire controllers?
Comment by Eliah on the January 19th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
Not usually. Most of the people using rapidfire controllers are caught because they are reported by another player.
Comment by JAMi3 z1 on the February 13th, 2010 at 12:14 am
"Lets all be adult, and realize that "A game is just a GAME". It is nothing more. It is for fun."
Its a game and yes its for fun but when they have a mod it get s pretty frustrating
Comment by konteyner on the July 30th, 2010 at 6:05 am
very beginning of gaming as wel
Comment by prefabrik on the August 9th, 2010 at 12:39 am
omments on what the friend said later stupid I could not understand
Comment by kabin on the August 17th, 2010 at 12:58 am
türkiyenin en iyi kabin üreticisi ve kabin ihraçatcısı.
Comment by su deposu on the August 23rd, 2010 at 1:21 am
merhabalar. ben sizinle görüşmek istiyorum. temiz ve bakımlı bir
Comment by samsun on the November 27th, 2010 at 4:42 am
are a dumb person. Get of the internet kid
Comment by Mike Curran on the November 27th, 2010 at 11:11 am
samsun that comment is unintelligible…
Please arrange your thoughts and words into a complete sentence. Then post it.
Comment by hesvinc on the December 7th, 2010 at 3:37 am
thanks
Comment by orleans hotel vegas on the January 11th, 2011 at 9:44 am
Turbo controllers have been on the market since the beginning of game consoles hitting the market. Turbo is Rapid Fire. Why aren't you bashing those company's? Why are you bashing us because we develop Rapid Fire specifically setup for certain games.