The Leviathan is a powerful force in keeping all kinds of online hooligans and digital delinquents in line. However, it is not just one thing. Instead, it is an amalgamation of certain behavioral standards and the forces that pursue and punish those who disobey. In the world of Counterstrike, it plays a key role in keeping the peace.
Counterstrike is an online first-person shooter game. It is round-based team combat, with the Counter-Terrorist team trying to stop the Terrorist team from performing their dastardly deeds, which may include blowing up something important, or killing hostages. Different players may employ different strategies to win, but all players are expected to try and accomplish the predetermined goals through fair gaming. This expectation arose due to the desire of all involved to experience (albeit vicariously) the thrill of mission-based combat.
There are many ways for players to gain an unfair advantage in Counterstrike. Players can "camp," which means staying in one spot that gives a very good strategic advantage. They can also use extremely powerful guns. The biggest threats, however, to an enjoyable game of shooting each other's heads off, are hackers. A hacker is a cheater, someone who is using an altered version of the game code to gain an unfair advantage. This can take many forms, some of which are the ability to see through walls, or "aimbots," which automatically make your gun point at your opponent's head. All of these behaviors are frowned up by the majority of the gaming community. Luckily, the Leviathan has many important tools for dealing with these perpetrators. The first is the server admin, who has control over everything in the game and can remove disruptive players from the game (temporarily or permanently). Some servers also employ automatic controls, such as disallowing the buying of unfair weapons, or automatically killing a player who does not move for a certain amount of time. Above all else, the biggest cheating deterrent is the banning of accounts. Someone who has been caught "hacking" may have their unique game ID number banned from all servers using a specific security protocol (which the vast majority of servers do use).
There are two factors Wallace discusses that help to explain the aversion to unfair play in online games. One is our natural tendency to conform. She explains it as an "eagerness to preserve a productive online environment" on page 70. This is the case in Counterstrike. Most players want to demonstrate their awesome ability at fake-killing, so they conform to the rules laid out for the game in order to prove their worth and have something to brag about later. In other words, while it may be fun to cheat every once in a while, it is not as fulfilling as proving you are the best in a fair fight, so we conform to the rules. Wallace also discusses our fear of the consequences as a reason to abide by the rules. You can be permanently barred from playing on almost every server if you decide to use "hacks," so most players choose not to risk it.
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I think you make a really interesting point about cheating online, and I am not sure if it differs very much from cheating in general. As you mentioned, people are generally both afraid of the repercussions as well as have a general need to fit in and conform. If no one conformed to the norm of “not cheating,” for example, there would never be any point in playing the game at all because all rules would be nonexistent. What is the point of cheating in an online game or any game? Doesn’t it ruin the point of playing for fun and feeling like you accomplished something when you actually do win? I think you did a very good analysis of this concept and it seems that the same would apply for a game of basketball, for example. Not only would you most likely get kicked out of the game for cheating, but it would take away from that great feeling we all get when we win something fairly.
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