But as Internet-based, multiplayer games like Quake III and Counter Strike grow in popularity, unscrupulous combatants employ methods to gain an unfair advantage over their opponents.

A small but factious minority in online gaming circles, cheaters can suck the fun out of a game.

According to Ricky Kapur, one of the men behind Kawabonka.com, a popular Indian game site, regular gamers find cheating a cause for concern: "Newbies usually cheat more often than regulars. After all, you would like to kill and manage a headshot in your first game. That wouldn't be possible without help." Understandably, this leaves the regular players discontented. "In fact," Kapur continues, "cheating is so rampant here that the moment a good player gets onto a game site, he's suspected of being a cheat and people want us to kick him out."

"If you can cheat at a game and get into the 'God Mode' -- where you cannot be killed -- anyone would cheat!" says Divya Bhatia, owner of Amazone, a cyber cafe in Kolkatta, "A lot of users not only cheat at online games but also download cheat codes that help them skip a level on Tomb Raider, or make your character 'unkillable'. Some have even figured out a way to crack casual games like online pool, checkers and chess."

Cheating is no small matter. In fact, game site owners in India believe it's the main reason that professional play isn't taking off faster. "It's a headache to referee for cheating, and to create tools to inhibit cheaters," says Kapur, who has a system administrator supervise the games to prevent cheating at Kawabonka.com.

Disgruntled users complain about cheaters on message boards. Says Anurag who has cheated online and been forbidden from gaming on a popular Indian game site: "I did it for a lark. It gave me a kick and made me stand out in my gang of friends. I was called 'Counter Strike Guru' in my team. But someone complained about me on the message board and I got caught. It was good while it lasted. And quite simple too."

Others like Divya Sampath who has been an avid gamer for ten years feels, "It's relatively easy to cheat on some games. But most dedicated gamers I know won't cheat even when they can."

Of course, Sampath has her own definition of cheating: "In action games like Quake, especially, you are expected to have mastered the basic cheat codes, otherwise you're pretty much dead the minute you get online. But that's not the same as 'cheating'. There's a spoken as well as unspoken code of conduct that most gaming communities live by. Still, there are always those who try to get away with murder. For instance, in Role Playing Games (RPG), you have 'player killers' or PKs -- guys who specialise in killing newbie characters to accumulate points."

For newbies, Samparth offers tips to avoid being conned and killed: "Hang around at gamers' forums to get a feel of things, and ask more experienced gamers how to avoid the pitfalls. Also, find out how to report abuse, and do so when you think you've been victimised."

Game site owners say that while many of the larger games have undercover cheater police, it's very hard to prevent those caught from returning under different names and even ISPs.

Says Jeffery Connors of Gamezone.com, a popular game and cheat code site: "This is just like the real world in that it takes only a few to spoil it for the rest. It is also the few that make the press. In general it does not affect most games. Users of cheats are really just saying, I'm not good enough to play this game without the cheats so I need the help."

In the early days of online games, cheating was less common because people played on local networks and knew their opponents. The Internet has changed that, says Dhruv Parpia, an online gamer and a participant at the Cyber Game Olympics Squad last year. "Once you go online, people are anonymous and that makes all the difference. Which is why LAN gaming is coming back in a big way for serious gamers."

Users -- for whom cheating has taken the fun out of gaming -- agree. Says Jeremy Tolbert, "I think cheating is one of several reasons that keep me from getting seriously into gaming. Most games require too much time commitment from someone who has other things to do. And everyone likes to feel they're playing a game well." To get this feeling, some players use cheat codes as shortcuts to success.

But not all games are easy to cheat at. Quake III, for instance, has inbuilt software which makes cheating very difficult. But for every Quake III, there is a Counter Strike -Half Life game which is hugely popular and has cheat codes flourishing all over the Net. "Since the gaming company Valve -- that made the game has not done anything about it, even anti-cheat creators have given up. Especially because the minute an anti-cheat is released, some designer or software programmer figures a way to cheat again. It's a never ending cycle," says Kapur.

He says Online Games Cheat has made cheating "as friendly as filling a form online. The program asks you how you would like to cheat, in which form and what kind of power would you like."

There are different cheat codes. Some are built into certain games, though inbuilt cheats are part of the manual, thus part of the game. The second are cheat codes that are built into the game and released on purpose at given times to spur interest. In addition, many are built in by the designers for their uses only, but get 'discovered'.

Third are the cheats that users create to change the program. These are the most destructive. But flourishing cheat sites look the other way. Connors of GameZone says, "Cheats have been and remain among the top reasons why users come to GameZone. Over 40 per cent of our users say they come primarily for cheats and over 60 per cent say they have used the cheat section of our site." A recent poll conducted on their site had the following results:

Don't you use cheats (be honest)?
I use all the time, its part of the game: 24.1%
If I am really stuck: 56.9%
Never, that's cheating: 19.0%

According to him, in one-on-one or one-to-eight player games you can learn who is cheating and avoid them. For larger games, he advises users to check the site message boards for hints on who could be cheating.

"If people believe they can compete fairly and cheaters will be caught, they're happy," Vishal Gondal, CEO Indiagames.com says. "But if there's only rampant cheating going on, the only people who'll be happy will be the cheaters. In the end, most people who play games online would rather not cheat."

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