Words Worth Knowing: Aimbot
Words Worth Knowing was a vertical I wrote weekly explaining key pieces of gaming jargon to parents, guardians and teachers, as part of the larger overall GameHub outreach effort. The column ran for nearly two years and resulted in around 60 WWK articles. GameHubHQ.com closed in late 2017. This piece originally appeared on April 11, 2016.
What It Is: Aimbot = A method of cheating in online combat games.
What It Means: Aimbots are a complex and advanced cheat program used to improve the player's accuracy when shooting. An aimbot has reflexes many times faster than a person and never makes mistakes, giving it an unfair advantage over human players that is often game ruining.
Why You Care: Use of aimbots in competitive games is deeply frowned on. The cheating player's aimbot take all their shots for them with the pinpoint speed and accuracy of a computer, giving the opposition no opportunity to fight back. It makes the game completely unfair and unbalanced to play, and may result in human players becoming very frustrated and annoyed. Use of aimbots is considered extremely unsportsmanlike. Players found using aimbots are often banned from a game by the community overseers.
