We have all played games that we wished we could hack and get more stuff in. And there have been many and many games that it was not completely impossible to do so. It used to be really simple to hack iPhone games and change their plist values to get anything we wanted but nowadays it has been really hard to do anything like that because of all the changes in iOS. But when one door closes other opens.
However, it’s seemingly getting harder and harder to actually hack now. Recently one of the games we played for class, Clash of Clans released a notice about how they are going on crack up on the people hacking and using mods to get unfair advantage and as much as I support that I’m not completely happy with where it might lead us to. Don’t get me wrong it’s not like I used any mods. I didn’t even know there were any useful ones to begin with. But setting a limit on how people play and use their games is not only limiting someone’s gameplay but also how they are going to keep continuing with the game.
It will however improve fairness a lot and make the game much more enjoyable to the people who take it seriously and want to get ahead with their merits and not by cheating.
Overall, this problem seems to come down to a matter of fairness as you stated, because I know that I personally used to jailbreak my iPod and get all the things that I could in single player games. However, once you throw in the multiplayer aspects of the game, the creators of game are basically faced with the decision of whether they want to let everyone hack there game to get what ever they want and do whatever they want, or to punish those that go out of their way to break the game by making themselves overpowered.
There is also one aspect of what is happening that factors in that has yet to be mentioned, and that is the all mighty dollar. If the creators of Clash of Clans allowed everyone that wanted to hack their game to do so, then people would not spend any money on their game and that probably played a huge role in whether or not any multiplayer game like this would allow hacking.
While not completely related to the message of your post I would like to reminisce on one of my favorite hacks in gaming. Back when Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow first came out there were tons of events that allowed players to get super rare pokemon if they attended. Some of the most highly attended events were ones that gave out the super rare Mew, since the special events were the only way one could get the pokemon. Once those events stopped happening rumors started spreading about glitches allowing people to get Mew in game. One of the more popular rumors was standing by the truck outside of the S.S. Anne in Vermillion City for a long time and the rare pokemon would appear. Eventually all of these rumors were proven false and everyone thought there was no way to get Mew.
However a few years later a glitch in the original Generation 1 pokemon games was discovered, promptly called the Mew Glitch. This glitch allowed players to obtain a Level 7 Mew in game by following a complicated series of steps. The Mew Glitch didn’t end at catching Mew though, if one were to attempt the glitch with different trainers in the Generation 1 games they could feasibly catch all 151 pokemon in the base games. This glitch made every single pokemon available to players of the original pokemon games. If anyone is interested in trying out this glitch just google Mew glitch and you will find detailed instructions on how to do it.