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... maximum belong to the “core” of the giant connected component (GCC) of each network. Nodes on the second maximum are the vast majority of well-connected nodes in the GCC. Furthermore, the “whiskers” =-=[22]-=- are the nodes connected to the GCC with longer paths than other nodes and can be seen on the long tail of each plot, thus responsible for its second negative slope. Our results on the Steam Community...

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...iends a user has, the less likely those relationships form geographically close triples, an intuitive result. 5.4.2 Social Closeness The second measure of social strength is based on a previous study =-=[24]-=- that suggests that the overlap between the social neighborhood of two individuals is a good indicator of the strength of their relationship. We study the overlap of friends of users in the Steam Comm...

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...ent the unethical behavior that breaks the rules of the game: “The rules of a game are absolutely binding [...] As soon as the rules are transgressed, the whole play-world collapses. The game is over =-=[17]-=-”. Online gamers are no different judging by anecdotal evidence, vitriolic comments against cheaters on gaming blogs, and the resources invested by game developers to contain and punish cheating (typi...

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... in the less tightly connected cheaters subgraph. Previous studies reported similar results, such as the low average path length of 6.6 hops between users in the world-wide distributed MSN population =-=[21]-=-. We further investigate the distribution of the effective radius in the Steam Community. The effective radius for a node v is defined as the 90th-percentile of all shortest distances from v [18]. Fig...

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...ar user for exemplary service to the group. Previous research on player grouping has tended to focus on in-game grouping mechanisms. For example, guilds in World of War craft have been examined in in =-=[10, 9, 3]-=-. Steam groups differ from most previously studied group constructs for gaming in that they exist separate from any specific game. Thus, by definition, Steam group relationships persist across games a...

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...logical needs for supporting gaming platforms. Consequently, various studies characterized network traffic due to gaming, resource provisioning, work load prediction, and player churn in online games =-=[6, 7, 13, 14, 15]-=-. Other studies have focused on the psychological and social properties of gamers [16] and gaming communities [5, 31, 9]. 3. DATASETS In order to better understand the datasets, we start by describing...

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...logical needs for supporting gaming platforms. Consequently, various studies characterized network traffic due to gaming, resource provisioning, work load prediction, and player churn in online games =-=[6, 7, 13, 14, 15]-=-. Other studies have focused on the psychological and social properties of gamers [16] and gaming communities [5, 31, 9]. 3. DATASETS In order to better understand the datasets, we start by describing...

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...cheaters, a competitive advantage and the desire to win is motivation enough [23]. Cheating is seen by the game development and distribution industry as both a monetary and a public relations problem =-=[8]-=- and, consequently, significant resources are invested to contain it. For example, Steam, the largest digital distribution channel for PC games, employs the Valve Anti-Cheat System (VAC) that detects ...

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...ce provisioning, work load prediction, and player churn in online games [6, 7, 13, 14, 15]. Other studies have focused on the psychological and social properties of gamers [16] and gaming communities =-=[5, 31, 9]-=-. 3. DATASETS In order to better understand the datasets, we start by describing the Steam Community network. Run by Valve, who also develops some of the most successful multiplayer first-person shoot...

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...raphic distribution of cheaters leads us to explore how cheaters are positioned in the network from a geo-social perspective We thus decide to measure node locality, a geo-social metric introduced in =-=[27]-=-. The node locality of a given node quantifies how close (geographically) it is to all of its neighbors in the social graph, and scales it proportional to the geographic network in which the node is e...

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...s. I.e., the “cheating degree” of the declared friendship network for cheaters and non-cheaters. We next estimated the diameter of the Steam Community using the Hadoop-based DIameter estimator (HADI) =-=[18]-=-. HADI estimates the maximum, average and effective diameter of a graph by computing the neighborhood function N(h), which refers to the number of reachable pairs of nodes within h hops of each other....

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.... Of the 34 non-secured servers, 26 were servers owned and administrated by a competitive gaming league that operates its own anti-cheat system. Gaming mimics, to some extent, real-world interactions =-=[29]-=-. Understanding the cheaters’ position in the social network that connects gamers is relevant not only for evaluating and reasoning about anti-cheat measures in gaming environments, but also for study...

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...logical needs for supporting gaming platforms. Consequently, various studies characterized network traffic due to gaming, resource provisioning, work load prediction, and player churn in online games =-=[6, 7, 13, 14, 15]-=-. Other studies have focused on the psychological and social properties of gamers [16] and gaming communities [5, 31, 9]. 3. DATASETS In order to better understand the datasets, we start by describing...

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...logical needs for supporting gaming platforms. Consequently, various studies characterized network traffic due to gaming, resource provisioning, work load prediction, and player churn in online games =-=[6, 7, 13, 14, 15]-=-. Other studies have focused on the psychological and social properties of gamers [16] and gaming communities [5, 31, 9]. 3. DATASETS In order to better understand the datasets, we start by describing...

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...shortest paths between all pairs of nodes in the network. Due to the scale of our graphs, we approximate betweenness centrality using κ–path centrality, a betweenness approximation method proposed in =-=[2]-=-. The κ–path centrality estimates the betweenness of a node in a network of n nodes and m edges by using random simple walks of length κ from random points in the network. To reduce the additive error...

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...raffic due to gaming, resource provisioning, work load prediction, and player churn in online games [6, 7, 13, 14, 15]. Other studies have focused on the psychological and social properties of gamers =-=[16]-=- and gaming communities [5, 31, 9]. 3. DATASETS In order to better understand the datasets, we start by describing the Steam Community network. Run by Valve, who also develops some of the most success...

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...eal-world money on eBay, and online game economies provide a lucrative opportunity for cyber criminals [19, 20]. For other cheaters, a competitive advantage and the desire to win is motivation enough =-=[23]-=-. Cheating is seen by the game development and distribution industry as both a monetary and a public relations problem [8] and, consequently, significant resources are invested to contain it. For exam...

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...s do not declare friends and foes, but compete on ad-hoc, opposing teams. Finally, while there might be cheaters present in the Pardus dataset, they are not identified or studied in anyway. Xu et al. =-=[32]-=- interviewed 14 Halo 3 players to study the meaning of relationships within an online gaming context. Halo 3 is a multiplayer First Person Shooter (FPS) available on the Xbox game console, similar in ...

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...logical needs for supporting gaming platforms. Consequently, various studies characterized network traffic due to gaming, resource provisioning, work load prediction, and player churn in online games =-=[6, 7, 13, 14, 15]-=-. Other studies have focused on the psychological and social properties of gamers [16] and gaming communities [5, 31, 9]. 3. DATASETS In order to better understand the datasets, we start by describing...

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...ce provisioning, work load prediction, and player churn in online games [6, 7, 13, 14, 15]. Other studies have focused on the psychological and social properties of gamers [16] and gaming communities =-=[5, 31, 9]-=-. 3. DATASETS In order to better understand the datasets, we start by describing the Steam Community network. Run by Valve, who also develops some of the most successful multiplayer first-person shoot...

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...ough play restrictions). For some cheaters, the motivation is monetary. Virtual goods are worth real-world money on eBay, and online game economies provide a lucrative opportunity for cyber criminals =-=[19, 20]-=-. For other cheaters, a competitive advantage and the desire to win is motivation enough [23]. Cheating is seen by the game development and distribution industry as both a monetary and a public relati...

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...ar user for exemplary service to the group. Previous research on player grouping has tended to focus on in-game grouping mechanisms. For example, guilds in World of War craft have been examined in in =-=[10, 9, 3]-=-. Steam groups differ from most previously studied group constructs for gaming in that they exist separate from any specific game. Thus, by definition, Steam group relationships persist across games a...

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...ce provisioning, work load prediction, and player churn in online games [6, 7, 13, 14, 15]. Other studies have focused on the psychological and social properties of gamers [16] and gaming communities =-=[5, 31, 9]-=-. 3. DATASETS In order to better understand the datasets, we start by describing the Steam Community network. Run by Valve, who also develops some of the most successful multiplayer first-person shoot...

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... Duh and Chen describe several frameworks for analyzing cheating, as well as how different cheats can impact online communities in [11]. Neopets, a web based social game, was examined by Dumitrica in =-=[12]-=-. She describes a process by which gamers, who naturally seek ways to increase their “gaming capital”, are tempted to cheat, and argues that a cheating culture emerges from social games, where social ...

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...lops some of the most successful multiplayer first-person shooter games, Steam controls between 50% and 70% of the PC digital download market and is more profitable per employee than Google and Apple =-=[28]-=-. It claims more that 30 million user accounts as of October 2011. While games from a number of developers and publishers are available for purchase on Steam, an important segment is formed by the mul...

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...n games without a multi-player component. 5. CHEATERS AND THEIR FRIENDS One line of thought in moral philosophy is that (non)ethical behavior of an individual is heavily influenced by his social ties =-=[25]-=-. Under this theory, cheaters should appear tightly connected to other cheaters in the social network. On the other hand, unlike in crime gangs as the ones presented in [1], cheaters do not need to co...