Gamer builds 'auto-play machine'

[BoyBach]

When US gamer David Harr got frustrated being 60 points short of completing a title he decided to take radical action - he built a machine to do it for him.

Car mechanic David Harr, from Seattle, realised he needed to devote 40 hours of playing just to earn the final reward points for Perfect Dark Zero.

He built a machine that would start and re-start the game to register for the final achievements he needed.

"I reverse engineered the problem and came up with the xBot," he said.

...

"I calculated that it would take about 40 hours of gameplay just pushing two buttons to start and re-start a game," he said.

"With my electronics experience I wondered if there was something that could push those two buttons for me so I could go about my daily life."

Using $60 (£32) of electronics parts bought from a local shop and some parts he had "just lying around", Mr Harr built his xBot machine in about 10 hours.

Two solenoids in the machine press the buttons when required so that the game starts at the right time.

Some gamers, writing in online forums, have accused Mr Harr of cheating.

"This is not playing online on Xbox Live - it is not playing against other people. That would be unethical.

"I asked myself: 'What type of rewards would be coming out of the effort of doing this?'.

"If I was recording button presses and joystick movements and duplicated that to help people bump up their scores, then there is money involved - that would not be ethical.

"This is a one trick pony, getting you just 60 points. It's not stepping on anyone's toes."

- BBC (http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6396925.stm)


Whatever next? Paying somebody else to gain your achievements for you?

;)

[Haoshiro]

Maybe developers should just make more useful achievements.

I mean really, some people miss the point of these, they should be evidence and proof that you did some cool and/or challenging things... not that you were tortured.

Geometry Wars is one of the few games that I think actually has really notable acheivements, as well as Burnout: Revenge.

[darkwing]

Solenoids? Pft. He should have written a controller simulator and plugged it into USB!

[zero2dash]

- BBC (http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6396925.stm)


Whatever next? Paying somebody else to gain your achievements for you?

;)

http://www.levelmy360.com

Yes, it's a pitiful state of affairs when people are so frickin' lazy and so vain with their Gamerscore when they'll actually pay someone to earn their achievements. The words "get a life" come to mind with these folks IMO. :rolleyes:

[dmw007]

Proof that some things go too far and become an obsession! :eek: :rolleyes:

[mkrishnan]

Does anyone remember the game Rygar on NES? There was some sort of thing in that game also that was so absurd that it basically was most prudent to tape the d-pad and buttons down on the controller or something like that...

[wordmunger]

Proof that some things go too far and become an obsession! :eek: :rolleyes:

Actually I'd say it was more of an obsession if he just played the game for 40 hours. He was actually thinking about the game, not just dumbly logging hours.

[Agilus]

Reminds me of the time a friend and I set up an oscillating fan to hit a button every 30 seconds so our characters in Tales of Symphonia could fight battles all night in the Abyss and accumulate stat-increasing herbs. You could set all the characters to be computer controlled, but you needed to hit a button to get out of combat, and since most combats took less than 10 seconds, a 30-second interval worked great.

We wanted to see how far we could max the characters' stats, and build up the demonic weapons to boot. By morning, a single hit from Lloyd's sword was doing over 2500 damage (if I remember right). Good times.... :)

[mattscott306]

Wasn't X-Bot the name of a Ctrl-Alt-Delete character?

[AoWolf]

Whatever next? Paying somebody else to gain your achievements for you?

;)


This happens every day in the MMO world. I found this guys efthical concerns amusing simply because their are companies who make millions of dollars selling MMO items accounts and gold. Is it right? No, but it happens.

[Jasonbot]

Seen this before... But who plays perfect dark anyways. I hate that game so much!

http://www.levelmy360.com

Yes, it's a pitiful state of affairs when people are so frickin' lazy and so vain with their Gamerscore when they'll actually pay someone to earn their achievements. The words "get a life" come to mind with these folks IMO.

Thats a ripoff! So do they hae pro gamers palying on your acc for points? or is it just that they give you points out of thinn air?

[Antares]

http://www.levelmy360.com
The words "get a life" come to mind with these folks IMO. :rolleyes:

Well, it seems like this guy (and people paying for leveling services) have a life. That's why he did (and they do) something like this. Someone who needs to "get a life" would be the one spending the extra 40hrs actually playing this game just to get those 60 points.

Does anyone remember the game Rygar on NES? There was some sort of thing in that game also that was so absurd that it basically was most prudent to tape the d-pad and buttons down on the controller or something like that...

Heh. I did something similar, back when, on the SNES. In Contra III, there's a point (right after you scale a building) where you can stop and shoot while enemies keep dropping in at the same exact spot. You get an extra life after a certain number of points. I put a rubberband around the controller, waited a few hours...and boom. I had enough lives to actually beat the game. Ah the memories.

[zero2dash]

Well, it seems like this guy (and people paying for leveling services) have a life. That's why he did (and they do) something like this. Someone who needs to "get a life" would be the one spending the extra 40hrs actually playing this game just to get those 60 points.

There's more to life than gaining +10 pts on your gamerscore. "Get a life" is aimed at anyone who thinks otherwise, whether you play 40 hours to get those +10 points or you pay someone else to get those +10 points.

Besides that, what (outrageous) game only gives you +10 points for 40 hours of gameplay? Some games are harsh with achievements, but I've never seen one like that.

Gamerscores (and moreso "achievements") are a great idea but I think some people are taking them too far if they think having a higher gamerscore than anyone else proves anything, because it doesn't. It just proves that you play more games than I do.

[sb58]

it's a smart idea, although i don't know how much i approve. Sure getting those gamerscore points isn't a huge deal, but it almost seems like he cheated to get them.