
Why cheating is good for human computation games  - amichail

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iamwil
I don't seem to understand what you're getting at. Strategy still exists in
games where no cheating occurs. Are you saying that with cheating, harder
strategies have to be formed by the players?

Games usually have a measure of accomplishment. Cheating is usually considered
a way of increasing the measure of accomplishment (leveling up) without being
subject to the cost of regular rules of the game (fighting monsters to gain
exp)--either by finding a combination of rules that negate the intended cost
(some type of exploit in game, like selling things for higher than you brought
them in an RPG), or by neglect of the rules (cheats)

I'm not sure I see how that adds a new dimension to game playing. Nor do I see
how that adds to human computation of problems. Since by cheating, players
obtain their reward without having to solve the problem.

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amichail
After reading about Luis' new game for identifying beautiful images, it
occurred to me that cheating would enhance human computation games.

The reason being is that cheating adds a new dimension to these games, namely
strategy.

So in the game for identifying beautiful images, you can try to get into your
partner's head based on the results of previous image pairs. This adds a new
dimension to the game that is missing in the ESP Game.

So instead of combating cheating, why not encourage it explicitly by providing
features to help players cheat? For example, in this beautiful image game, one
can show the results of past image pairs while the game is in progress.

Even in the presence of such cheating, one may still get lots of useful data
for subjective problems. In fact, one may get more as the games would have a
new dimension to them.

