the gamesaver confessionals
I recently posted an article about how to view achievement timestamps via Xbox.com. This knowledge came to me via close friend and fellow gamerdad JD Buck, who shares my views on earning gamerscore legitimately as well as my disdain for all forms of gamerscore cheating. If this is your first visit to the site, it may be best to review my previous diatribes on this matter before continuing.- the sacred institution of gamerscore
- the gamerscore police - meet ace attorney of xbox cheaterwatch
- how to view achievement unlocked times
Now, it seems after my most recent piece that instructed users on how to spot a gamesaver by looking at peculiarities in achievement unlocked times, JD Buck was contacted by a (now) self-confessed gamesaver "Shuckey" aka "D3vilz Adv0cat3" - who it seems wanted an opportunity to clear the air. What followed was a fascinating 3000+ word exposition by Shuckey (also a gamerdad) which was at both a detailed history of gamesaving (including methodology) and an explanation of he came to be deeply entrenched in (and ultimately responsible for much of) the gamesaving scene:
My name is Marc W. I am 33 years old, married for six years with a two-year-old son. I grew up in a small town just outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan. I went to school at Detroit Country Day High School (graduated 1 year behind Chris Webber if you're into basketball). I graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Architectural Engineering from Purdue in 1996.
This is where the story of gamesaving began ...During all [my] years of playing and programming, I collected every video game system and at least 80% or more of each game catalog for each system. For every system I owned a Game Genie, Game Shark, Pro Action Replay, or other such device for every system including my Neo-geo Gold.
I did not buy these things to collect. I used them to be able to beat games and do things you could not normally do (which will also come into play later). I am what you call a compulsive person I do things 100% until I can no longer keep up at the same pace. I want all the cars unlocked in Gran Turismo. I want all the characters unlocked in Soul Calibur 2. I want 100% completion in Grand theft Auto 3. This is just my personality. Am I a cheater? According to the big companies like Nintendo, Sony, and Sega, yes I was, even then.
But I paid $50 dollars for a game and if the learning curve or difficulty were too high or too hard, or worse, the game was super cheap, people in general feel ripped off and did not get to fully enjoy their purchase. Same goes for 360 games. I paid $60 for the game which includes the achievements.
I got my 360 before launch ... [and] in March 2006, I started playing on Live. I played every game that came out and became compulsive about Gamerscore.
Then the Gamerscore scene got hot when an article about STtheKing, StripClubDJ, and TheGrayWolf hit. At that time, we were all Legit. Then it just got away from us. We let it consume our lives and bury the real gamers we were...
Now, I don't quite agree with his entitlement argument: many gamesavers argue they are "entitled" to the full achievements since they purchased the game - but as someone astutely pointed out on the Xbox forums, they are no more entitled than my son would be entitled to an MVP award simply because I paid for him to play Little League baseball.
Nevertheless, it's a very interesting read (especially the parts that follow) and hopefully JD will post a follow-up and any further confessionals from gamesavers that may present themselves to him for absolution. Check out the full text here: http://jdbuck1.blogspot.com/2008/04/reformed-gamesaver-tells-his-story.html
Xeno, thanks for the article. Just to let you and anyone else know, I just posted a Q&A with Shuckey, where he frankly answers my questions about gamesaving and his role in the whole subculture of it.
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Xenocidic:
Reading the information that I have which has been posted a few things really are not clear to those carrying forward this crusade. The first is that everyone that used saves had their own reason for doing so. Not everyone was maliciously trying to overtake the leaderboards. Second, while the entitlement argument is popular with some, some people think it is stupid that they can not remove a game from their card and to gamesave some points is better than having a big fat zero on their card for a game. Then there is the value system - obviously you hold high regard for a gamerscore - some hold high regard for order (completion); others hold a higher regard for chaos and wanting to bring disorder to a leaderboard. With a score that signifies little to anything because of other issues with the live service (boosting) even if a card is not gamesaved, how good of a gamer are you really facing? If people are lucky enough to come upon the revered Stallion83 in an online match, they will not find a huge competitive gamer that will be able to compete against them 1 v 1 as his score would indicate, what they find is a gamer that stinks. If MS wants to stop boosting, the best way is to go the way of COD4 - no online achievements. Anyway, getting off topic, what I have seen since the resets came down is a lack of truly knowing why a gamesaver used their saves to gain points. You assume it is to get to the top of the leaderboards, but what you don't understand is there there are a bunch of people that used gamesaves in the 50k - 150k range and who are not threatening the #1 spot. Why did they use them? I am sure they each have their own reason and until you try to step outside and understand, your attempt to help clean up the leaderboards will be in vain. I maintain that if gamerscore were a true competition that gamesaving would be cheating. At this point in time with boosting, this is not the case and I do hope that MS follows through with cleaning up the system and not going about it half-cocked like many of their other programs (Vista, ME). Otherwise this is not a statement to help a community, but a political statement to harm a few individuals they deem as threats.
By the way, interesting note for you and your readers - check out the following website that is now selling gamesaves, and more importantly, gamerscore (as the description of their saves indicates). Looks to me that the reset has not gotten the impact the MS expected and now, cheating has gone commercial:
<link removed by xenocidic>
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But from what I understand, people were selling gamesaves and gamerscore prior to the resets being conducted.
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True - but it was a little like the current drug problem - it came down to who you knew in a sort of underworld society - this new site represents the selling of gamerscore as a much more mainstream occurance - analogous as to if Walgreens would start selling marajuana over the counter...people would be very upset if Walgreen's did that, but yet I have yet to see anyone blink an eye at the Xploder software, especially since post reset - alot of people had a lot of opinions...
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