Valve Software's Counter-Strike on Cheaters and Hackers

Cheaters ruin games. So Valve Software, creators of mega-franchises such as Counter-Strike and Half-Life, is engaged in a meta-game of its own—fighting the cheaters who want to exploit the system. It may seem petty to outsiders, but in the $18 billion video-game industry,having a secure play environment is essential. The problem first showed up on the company’s radar in 2004, after it heard rumors that a cheater had devised a way to see through walls. Spectrum contributing editor David Kushner discusses Valve's hunt for cheaters and how it has enlisted gamers themselves in policing its online platform, Steam.