Exploits in the bestselling video game Dead Space 3 are allowing users to obtain in-game items for free.
The "cheats" could prove costly to the title's publisher,
Electronic Arts (EA), which has introduced a system that charges users
cash for extra equipment in the sequel.
The move has proved controversial with some, since the title already costs about £40.
EA has the ability to issue an update to remove the workarounds.
However, a spokesman said the firm had no comment on the issue.
Dead Space 3 is an action-horror third-person shooter set on a frozen planet.
Part of its challenge is locating scarce in-game resources
needed to create ammunition and medical packs in order to tackle the
title's monsters.
In previous games in the franchise, the user needed to find
credits in order to buy upgrades. However, the new game introduces
real-money micro-transactions as a way of allowing players to add
equipment faster than would otherwise be possible.
Ethical dilemma
The bugs were first reported by the news site Game Front, which subsequently posted a video online showing how they worked.
One involves the player's character walking into a specific building,
picking up an item, walking out - and then returning to find a new item
has appeared. This can be repeated an unlimited number of times.
The other requires the user to go to a different destination,
to pick up an item and then to select save and quit before returning to
the game.
Within hours of the discoveries, news of the exploits spread to other gaming sites and social media networks.
Several users commented that they did not believe using the
cheats was unethical because Dead Space 3 had already been priced as a
"premium title".
Bolt-on costs
The rise of micro-transactions in video games can be traced to
Asia, where they were introduced as part of efforts to combat piracy.
Rather than charge users to buy software, publishers opted
for a "freemium" model, in which the basic product was given away but
premium add-on services or features involved payment.
It has since become a common feature in the wider smartphone market.
Console titles have long offered the ability to buy
additional downloadable content (DLC) such as extra levels, characters
or clothes. However, it is relatively rare for them to charge money for
items intrinsic to a character's progress through core content.
Dead Space's developer, Visceral, has stressed players do not
need to buy items in Dead Space 3 in order to finish it - but gamers
have been concerned about what the innovation signalled.
"People are wondering why do you have to pay more in order to
get a weapon that is in the main game anyway," said Keza MacDonald,
games editor of the IGN news site.
"The way EA is presenting it is that if you want the weapons
earlier then you can buy them. But it's a slippery slope because if most
games start adopting this as a tactic you're effectively devaluing the
money gamers have had to lay out in the first place."
Legal questions
Cheats have long been a feature of video games.
Magazines such as Zap Attack used to publish pages of tricks
in the 1980s to help gamers boost ammunition or health points. Websites
offering walkthroughs and other cheat sheets now continue that
tradition.
However, one solicitor told the BBC that the practice became "legally grey" once micro-transactions were involved.
"If you go into a baker's to buy a bun and they give you the
wrong change and you walk away knowing you have been given more change
than you handed over in the first place, that's theft," Sara Ludlam, an
intellectual property expert at Lupton, Fawcett, Lee & Priestley
told the BBC.
"So, arguably if you go into this game knowing you are supposed to be
paying for these weapons and you notice a glitch allows you to
accumulate them without paying, that's theft as well.
"But it is arguable because it's a new area."
There is no suggestion that EA would pursue such a case.
Game Front has also made clear that it believed the "farming"
of resources within Dead Space 3 should not be equated with in-game
purchases.
"Game Front is committed to providing its audience with
walkthroughs, easter eggs and cheats for popular video games," said its
managing editor Mark Burnham.
"This video was an example of Game Front providing that service, and did not present an ethical dilemma.
"The strategy described in our video merely allows players to
efficiently gather resources freely available in the game; the only way
to instantly gain resources in the game is to purchase them through the
micro-transactions feature."
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