Stealing from Grandma or Generating Cultural Knowledge? Contestations and Effects of Cheats in a Tween Virtual World

Fields and Kafai's study examines how cheat sites function within Whyville, a non-commercial tween virtual world, drawing on a sample of 257 Google-listed cheat sites and a 2000–2005 archive of more than 100 articles from the community newspaper, The Whyville Times. Their central argument is that player-made cheat sites are not merely a vehicle for shortcuts but serve as evidence of an active community and as sources of cultural and learning value. The authors find that the cheat-site typologies identified by Salen and Zimmerman for commercial games apply in this setting as well, with content ranging from comprehensive, well-explained solutions to scams and copied material.

Among the sampled sites, only about 15 percent offered near-complete solutions with cultural tips, while most were partial or low in quality. The case of Gamesite2.net illustrates how such a site could rapidly mobilize its community to solve the Spitzer Spectrometer game and compile a shared reference table of answers. Newspaper coverage reflects a largely negative view of cheating: roughly 30 percent of articles condemned cheating in salary-raising games, about 20 percent debated Smart Cars tactics, another 20 percent addressed ballot stuffing, and around 10 percent warned against scams. Still, some writers recognized creative or useful dimensions. The authors also acknowledge effects such as eroded trust in elections and leadership, and note that administrators control the environment, so the published discussions may not fully represent players' perspectives.

The concluding section turns to economics, arguing that cheats and shortcuts carry monetary equivalents because gaming capital can be converted into real value through eBay sales and bot purchases. Whyville's late-2006 introduction of real-to-virtual currency exchange, in which clams could be sold for dollars, further creates incentives that bypass both effort and cheating. The authors frame cheating as a form of commodified knowledge with critical potential, while acknowledging that they have not yet determined how cheat typologies will change under this new economic landscape.