Cheat Engine

[Vanminna]

I found out today, my kid (11 yrs) has been using ce to hack multiplayer online game (growtopia). He got banned, no wonder. He deserved it. I am an old school bag, and don't really understand what he has been up to, but i wanna understand.

I asked why he did it. No personal gain interest, pure curiosity on the fact that it is possible, and he wanted to find new modifications to the game. He knew his previous bans came due to mods, but he kept doing it, because irresistable. He knew the stuff was not cool, but he had no malice intent, so iam not that mad at him. Anyways, now he has been suspended for good from his fav game, and he needs new ways to pass time.

Being the supportive mom i am, i am now trying to find a way for him to keep pursuing his dreams, but in a legal way. What are the legal ways to use ce? For example is it ok, if he modifies minecraft single-player game offline? My logic goes, that he can't cause any harm, if he is offline, but is this right?

I would also appreciate if someone wants to explain why modifications on online games is not ok? Does these mods harm the game somehow? This is an innocent dummy question, i really am clueless when it comes to inner workings of computers.

Also if you have tips for fun legal activities young one can do with ce, i am happy to hear. Kiddo is bit of a geek. He does not speak - read English, since he has studied that only for two years, why he can't follow discussions on forums and why i am here and try to learn the bare minimum in order to push him to a better direction with his special interest.

-momofahackboy-

[rog9001]

[Vanminna]

Thank you for you thoughtful and kind answer.

How can it be known if the game uses offline game data in multi-player? Does it say it somewhere in the game about that?

Kid does not mind being banned, he just wants to do stuff. i am also more concerned him getting into serious trouble for not understanding what he is doing. And me being clueless, we are quite the pair.

So what guidelines should i give for him to stay safe with cheats? For personal use only?

[rog9001]

[Rin]

Your child should be fine as long as he stays within the realms of cheating at these games.

There is a murky area where people try to import non-natural game items into said games and sell them for real money. Under certain country's laws this is illegal, but I do not know of anyone being actually punished too heavily for this offense outside of South Korea.

If he starts trying to decompile game assets to recreate a game, then we may run into issues later on. ie. private servers

[Vanminna]

I spend some time last night reading here, and I became to conclusion Rin and rog9001 confirmed. Thanks!

Kid also started speaking, when he understood i wanna know, not give him a hard time. He explained that he is not doing anything money related, he is just modifying the appearance, like flying fast.

And then I understood the main problem is that the modifications may annoy other people and it is more of a social issue than legal issue, why the bans are given. Boy I learned a lot on these pages. I had no idea of this world.

Next I would like to make a request. Kid likes to modify growtopia, since it is easy for him. Can you recommend games that are easy to modify? He uses windows, sometimes switches to linux, but prefers windows.

How about does a game exist where the whole point is making modification? A Hacking game, where you can level up by finding the right modifications? He seems to be now mainly interested in modifying and not so much the playing itself. He is not so interested in coding, I guess that also is too hard.

[rog9001]