Would a hack for a competitive video game look good on a resume, or would it call into question my ethics?

Question

I'm considering developing a hack for a competitive multiplayer game and putting it on my resume. Is this a good idea, or would it cause too many questions? Could I avoid this by not distributing or attempting to monetize the hack?

Edit: to clarify, I am talking about something that's legal but against the rules of the game, that modifies and reads memory.

Edit: I believe that this constitutes a different question because it's much more specific and raises other questions; is a game hack even grey or is it more black? Is it even impressive in the first place? In what contexts would this particular project be worth showing off? What is terminology one could use to reframe the ethics of the project?

Answer 1

I'll tell you it depends on how ballsy you are and exactly what sort of job seeker you are. I had a friend who for years had 'President of Humans Vs. Zombies Club' on his resume. Most recruiters probably glanced straight over this, and I know of several times his resume was binned in front of him for it (college career fairs can be brutal). He was extremely stubborn, saying he didn't want to work some place that wouldn't look favorably on that. He did wind up with a job about three weeks before graduation (my school had something like a 93% graduating employment rate), but definitely at a lower salary than both myself and many of his peers. I've not spoken to him since, so I have no idea if it's still there, but I do know it objectively hurt his chances, but he was subjectively happier for it (last I heard).

I'd keep it off the resume and bring it up in an interview if I felt the interviewer would be receptive to this sort of this and it were relevant.

TL;DR: do this only if you are sure you want to work in a place that will appreciate something like that, and be ready to lose out on other opportunities for that.

Answer 2

Reverse-engineering is a great skill. So, instead of phrasing it as "Game Aimbot", which might make it sound skeevy, phase it as "reverse-engineered Game".

I'd recommend releasing the exploit under an open-source license, and posting it on Github, Gitlab, or an equivalent service. Write a good README, and make it accessible! Add Travis CI, and unit tests. All of these things make you look more competent, and they're uncommon in the sketchy for-profit "game exploit" world.

For example, Apple has hired numerous people because of their work in the iOS jailbreak community, an ecosystem that is based entirely on iOS exploits - they recognize that people who can do this work are incredibly talented, and many of them have knowledge of the iOS internals that approaches that of Apple employees.

Answer 3

As a hiring manager, I'd bin your CV if I saw that in it. Not even necessarily for ethic reasons (although that would possibly contribute, for the reason of hacking a commercial code base which could be a poor sign of character and a risk to my business), but because you place sufficient value within your own reportable experience on that achievement that you feel the need to include it.

All of that to me indicates a lack of any real, relevant experience and I'd skip to the next CV.

Answer 4

I think you need to define what you mean by "hack".

I'd say any hack that might result in a ban from that game world when detected would probably be something you kept to yourself. I'm with @Jane S in that I'd bin the resume for the exact same reasons she mentioned, plus the ethical ones.

However, if by "hack" you are talking about something allowable by the ToS (exa: skinning a MMO client) then I'd only mention it if that skill were relevant to the job you are seeking.

Answer 5

Personally, I wouldn't do this. Some people might see this on your resume and react positively, while others would react very negatively. The strong negative reactions would be more important to any hiring decisions than the vaguely positive ones -- unless, of course, you were looking for a job writing hacks for networked games.

Answer 6

I think it depends on what job you are applying for. There are jobs in the security sector where that kind of thing might be looked at favorably. But if that isn't a field you want to get into, then leave it off your resume. Your resume is what gets you in the door at a company, so design it for the widest appeal. Once you get in, you can mention your hack in interviews if you want.

Answer 7

You should not put it in your CV, at least not without endorement.

By hacking a multiplayer game you're proving that the game has security flaws, and that you've discovered and managed to break into their (suposedly) secure code.

While that is impressive, it's also quite possibly that it will be frowned upon. But there is one exception:

Contact the Company you hacked. Seriously. The game company would be more than interested in fixing the security flaw you found, and as such, you could quite easily help them fix it.

Aaaaaand, since you've helped find and fix a security flaw, you wouldn't need to say that you hacked someone, but that you correctly found and fixed a security flaw for Company X.

In the end, you get the experience of cracking a company, and you help that company become safer. On top of that, you get to put on your CV that you have experience with Online Security, without it looking bad on your resume.

Answer 8

It highly depends. I wrote my senior thesis on hacking a large MMO. I contacted the company before hand about what I thought and they said it was okay since I had no interest in manipulating the system. It had worked and I wrote an amazing paper. They had made a patch for it the next day to fix it. About 2 years later I worked for that company. It was a great experience.
However, for most other jobs, I wouldn't recommend taking pride if you arbitrarily hacked a game. As a developer and designer, it is really upsetting when someone breaks my app "because they can" especially when it affects sales and other users' experience. In most cases, I would probably also shelve the offender's CV.