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Gaming 221console gaming. As the gaming community has moved to the Internet, thevolume of secondary production and information related to gaming hasexpanded exponentially, as has the social organization of online gamingcommunities. The advent of accessible video-editing tools has also creatednew forms of player-generated content such as machinima and videobasedgame walk-throughs. While it is beyond the scope of this chapter todelve into details of the world of player-generated content (see for exampleHertz 2002; Lowood 2007), we would like to describe some of how youngpeople engage in these augmented game play practices, both as creatorsand consumers of player-created content and knowledge.Most players engage with augmented game play as consumers of thework of other players or of the cheats and modifications embedded ingames by the developers. In our work, we did not encounter any kids whocreated their own cheat codes or walk-throughs, but we do have indicationsthat access to cheats and other secondary gaming texts was commonamong kids. In Lisa Tripp and Becky Herr-Stephenson’s study of Los Angelesimmigrant families (Los Angeles Middle Schools), Herr-Stephenson had theopportunity to see how cheat codes operated in the everyday game playof Andres, a twelve-year-old Mexican American. In her field notes shewrites,Andrew picks up his controller and pulls a sheet of folded notebook paper from hispocket. On the paper are written about a half dozen cheat codes for the game. Heglances at it and decides that he first needs to “get the cops off [his] back.” Thiscode he knows by heart and he enters the series of keystrokes that make his characterinvisible to the police officers in the game. Then, he tries the new code and is excitedwhen his bank balance jumps up about $1,000. Then, he jumps in a car and takesoff. When he crashes that car, he jumps out and quickly enters a string of keystrokesfrom memory. The car is instantly restored to perfect condition. I ask him how helearned the codes he has memorized and where he got the list of new codes. Hetells me that there are some older kids who live in his apartment complex who givehim the codes. He also has two older cousins (high-school age) who play the gameand have given him some of the codes. When I ask if he thinks using the codes ischeating, he looks confused. I don’t think he’s ever thought about it as cheating(despite calling them “cheat codes”) and instead just thinks that such codes are anormal part of game play.What is interesting about this case is the degree to which cheat codes havebeen integrated as a commonsensical part of game play and have foundtheir way into the hands of a player who does not have access to the