Photos: Richard Thurman

GAMEBOTS: When Thurman went into automated gold ­farming, he purchased stacks of computer gear [bottom] and set up a bank of computers [top] to play Ultima Online for virtual currency, which he later exchanged for real money.

Thurman has been part of it from the start. You might even say he helped establish it. A software specialist with a bachelor's degree in business information systems and a master's in computer science, both from the University of Phoenix, he spent three years applying himself to milking Ultima Online, then one of the most popular multiplayer games, for all he could. At his peak, he had a fleet of 30 computers automatically raking in game gold, earning him more than $25 000 per month.

Subverting video games isn't new. Geeks have been figuring out how to exploit game technology to their advantage for decades, giving themselves extra “lives” in Pac-Man or switching into invincible “God mode” in Doom. When massively multiplayer games such as Ultima Online, from Electronic Arts of Redwood City, Calif., and EverQuest came onto the scene during the last decade, the emergence of virtual economies raised the stakes. You weren't just competing for ego anymore; you were gaming for dollars.

Other factors helped attract hackers. For example, economies of scale. Online games are not just for nerds. The action is mainstream. Hordes of engineers, accountants, lawyers, and other wannabe knights and knaves do battle in EverQuest (dubbed “EverCrack” for its addictiveness), World of Warcraft, and other games. Schoolchildren, college students, and GenXers are playing such online games as Halo 3 on the Xbox 360 or Madden NFL 2008 on the Playstation 3. Many graying gamers take to casual online games, such as bridge and chess. It doesn't take much more than a computer and an IP address to access your passion.

Thurman started playing Ultima Online as an undergraduate in 1997. He couldn't help but wonder if, through a few hacks, there was a way to make his game-playing experience better. After surfing around, he came upon software such as UOAssist and EasyUO. When run in conjunction with a game, those programs gave players advanced macros, which are keyboard shortcuts to speed up mundane tasks such as healing yourself after battle. He realized he was on to something.

Thurman left Phoenix in 1998, moved to Dallas, and began working full time as a support engineer for a large software company, which he also prefers not to name. He continued thinking about hacking Ultima Online, and he became aware of the growing real-world market for virtual gold. The problem was that he couldn't amass it fast enough to make a decent buck. But, he thought, if he could create an auto-playing robot, something that could basically play the game for him—then maybe he could cash in.

Drawing on his programming knowledge and with the help of DIY hacker sources online, such as Fravia.com, Thurman got to work. He started by shelling out $800 for a reverse-engineering software tool called IDA Pro from DataRescue of Liège, Belgium. IDA Pro lets users see the structure of a program's logic. Point it at a program, and it creates a flowchart of how the software works. Thurman directed the tool to the “client” software he'd downloaded to his PC to let him to play Ultima Online. (The client software is what every player downloads in order to play.)

Basically, IDA Pro reverse-engineered Ultima Online's inner workings. Not only did it let Thurman see the basic functions of the client software, it also let him see the specific memory addresses where the software stored key variables such as the player's location in the game world, an inventory of the player's possessions, and the status of the player's health.

That information led Thurman to write a chunk of C++ code that he inserted into the client software to allow it to communicate with Microsoft.Net, a development environment for Windows computers. In effect, the C++ code functioned as a kind of outlet to the servers running the game. With that done, he needed, essentially, to write a plug to stick into the outlet. He wrote that plug in Visual Basic. Once complete and installed in his machine, it could exchange information with the Ultima Online client in his computer and, through that client software, the Ultima Online servers at the Redwood City headquarters of Electronic Arts. In other words, he got access to the brains running the game.

Next, Thurman set up his bank of computers [see photos, GAMEBOTS]. He chose the cheapest off-the-shelf PCs available that had enough power to run Ultima Online, and he bought 30 of them. Each was equipped with an Intel Pentium 4 or a Celeron processor, a gigabyte of RAM, and a 20‑GB hard drive. He connected the bank of PCs to three monitors and a network of six cable modems, four routers, and a Toshiba tablet PC that he used to manage the whole operation.

Then he got down to business. The plan was that each of the 30 PCs would play the game individually, creating a character and then using that character to perform tasks that would earn gold. Thurman wrote software to randomly generate details about the characters—names, classes (fisherman, say, or fighter), and skills (such as magic or cooking), saving him the trouble of creating each character manually. He cloaked his identity by purchasing anonymous gift cards to set up accounts rather than paying for them with a personal credit card (the gift cards are no longer being sold).