316 Personal Content Experience: Managing Digital Life in the Mobile Age There are risks involved in games, as with any type of software. Especially, virus attacks via games are a potential threat – many games allow versatile connections between players, thus providing paths for viruses to sneak in. Also mods may contain malware such as viruses, worms, and Trojan horses. Not to mention illegal sharing of copy- righted games – most fi le-sharing networks contain loads of cracked games that, when downloaded, do not arrive alone. Another less explicit, yet equally potential, game-induced risk is related to in-game messages. The communication channels discussed above often provide for the connected gamers to communicate to each other. As with any communication method, in-game messaging is subject to abuse and real-life risks such as bullying and predators. An interesting aspect related to mods is censorship and, often closely related, copyright. In some countries, the law may require that the content is checked before it is released to the public. Likewise, online games include screening for in-game messaging, character names and appearance, and so forth. The moderator may replace words they fi nd unacceptable with graphical symbols, such as # and %. Mods are also screened before they are released. Obviously, it is impossible to extend these requirements to mods built for stand-alone single-player games, or to those that are distributed unoffi cially. A notorious case is a mod called Hot Coffee created for Grand Theft Auto: 33 San Andreas. The mod enabled a hidden “Adults Only” mini-game within the game. As a result, several stores pulled the game off the shelves, and in some countries the game rating was changed. A lawsuit 34 was also fi led. Speaking of unoffi cial mods and DRM issues, the relationship between creating mods and distributing them is unclear. In cases where the game developer has not released any tools or documenta- tion for creating mods, reverse engineering is needed to be able to create modifi cations; this can be considered cracking the game. Even though, such activity can be considered dubious from the game devel- oper’s point of view, as what is clearly illegal is the distribution of such mods. Another example related to copyright deals with character appear- ance. In an MMORPG title City of Heroes, where the users are able to confi gure the character appearance, the developers made some char- acters appear like cartoon characters from Marvel comic books, such as The Hulk and X-Men. Marvel Enterprises consequently sued the 33 http://www.gamespot.com/news/6129500.html 34 http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/gta4/news.html?sid=6143276