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[pkmin3033]

(That's the Konami Code, in case you were wondering)

Have you ever used cheat codes or similar in video games? At what point do you consider it "acceptable" to cheat in a video game, and what qualifies as cheating? Is taking advantage of a loophole or exploit programmed into the game that is clearly not the way the developers intended that you do something really cheating? Where do you draw the moral line on cheating?

 

[gimmepie]

I have, but I don't really make a habit of it. The only games I can actually remember cheating in are a handful of GTA and Sims titles. DST too if mods count. For me, it depends on if applying cheats improves the gaming experience, I suppose. There's no point to cheating if it makes the game less fun. That being said, my thoughts on cheating in general are, if you're playing alone do whatever makes it more fun for you, but never use cheats or similar to get an unfair edge in PvP games cause that's just going to piss other people off unfairly.

 

[Fleurdelis]

There is a reason why GTA Cheat Code Andreas was so much fun to play back in the day. Messing around with all the avalible codes was just fun to see what happens. Cheating online is just sad though, just do it in games that allow a billion cheat codes :P

 

[CiCi]

Sometimes, I just wanna cheat in a game and have fun. I've done it with The Elder Scrolls series and Fallout, just playing around. I don't really care if people want to cheat, as long as it's not for speedrunning or competitions, just for fun. That's kind of the point of video games - to have fun.

Outside of those games, I don't tend to cheat (games like Sonic or Animal Crossing). The worst I did with Spyro games was use the built-in codes to turn him blue or give him a big head, etc.

 

[Lysander]

I frequently use the cheat codes they have in GTA 5 whenever I'm playing on offline mode. Why spend millions on an Attack Helicopter plus a Helicopter Pad when you can make one appear right in front of you?

 

[Palamon]

Never have, and never will. I don't believe in using cheat codes. I only play Video games fairly.

 

[Sammi]

*looks at a box of cloned 6IV shiny Pidove in Alpha Sapphire*
I'D NEVEEEEEER CHEAT

But yeah I do sometimes, mostly in single player games where it doesn't hurt anyone else. I used to be a little more okay about sending out hacks/clones on WT in past gens but I don't anymore.

 

[Cherrim]

I don't cheat if it would affect other people. I would never, ever cheat in a multiplayer game (unless it was a collaborative game and we were all cheating, like installing helpful mods in Minecraft—that sort of thing). I don't like most multiplayer games to begin with because I like to play at my own pace, but I definitely would never want to boost my game if it meant ruining someone else's experience.

That said, I do prefer trying to get through things legitimately on the whole but... honestly? As I've gotten older, i find I care less about that. If I have stopped having fun with something, I have no qualms cheating a little to get past it. I think a good example of how I feel about this is my playthrough of Final Fantasy VIII last year. I emulated it and... while I didn't use cheat codes or anything like that, I did save state scum constantly. It turned Triple Triad (a card minigame) from an annoying thing I didn't like at all to one of my favourite parts of the game. I collected every single card and did all the sidequests for it. But those quests were annoying. Every single part of it was super RNG based and some of the quests were infuriating about it, where resetting to get RNG to play nice could take hours. I have tons of respect for anyone who actually did all this legitimately, but it was enough work save state scumming it to make sure the right rules were in play, or the right cards appeared in the game, or that I won (or simply didn't lose cards I didn't mean to lose), and then making sure I got the right post-match effects. Even being able to quickly load in a state, it took upwards of half an hour on some things, so I can't imagine having to reset the console, go back into the game, load the file, run back to the card player, challenge them, and repeat any number of times until I got the right settings. Oof.

So yeah, for stuff like that? No qualms about cheating a bit. The only person I'm "letting down" is myself and I value my time more than I value some false sense of morality about video games, lol.

 

[Flowerchild]

i cheated in minecraft multiplayer when i was an edgy kid lol

these days, i dont think there's anything morally wrong with cheating in singleplayer and i do it from time to time, especially if it's a game i've played before and i just feel like breezing through the parts i already know are annoying.

 

[Uragirimono]

I *did* mess around with Animal crossing one time...regretted it and didn't play the game for months. Cheating = less fun for me.

 

[Palamon]

As for how I feel about cheating in video games... I'm pretty 50/50 on that. On one hand, I don't like cheating. I've always found cheating in video games rather uncool, ie: people making ever singe Pokemon appear shiny, giving yourself infinite lives, those kind of things, I definitely don't like. Those are types of things I find extremely unfair to a gaming experience. But, if you want to cheat shinies, or infinite lives, whatever, that's you. I'm not going to raise a fuss or anything. You can play a video game however you want, I don't care.

I also think it's wrong to use cheats when playing with other people. There was this one time I battled a kid in a Pokemon game, and he had a hacked Spiritomb w/ the Wonder Guard ability, and... that shit isn't cool. This was back a long time ago in maybe 2009, so people were still hacking pretty commonly. So, if you're going to cheat, please play fairly against real people. That's all I'm asking.

But I do understand some people get frustrated, and don't want to keep playing game if they're stuck, and resort to using cheats to get through. This, I'm fine with. You're not hurting anyone by doing this. I know everyone has different levels of patience. As long as you aren't using these cheats when playing with a real person, I don't care. Do you.

I also do think that it's interesting to see how games behave when certain cheat codes are used, such as debugging menus, and stuff left in the code that went unused. This stuff is really cool. I just think it's a shame that you can only access this sort of content through cheat codes.

Also, btw, in terms of exploiting bad coding in games/exploiting glitches, this is something I don't really consider cheating. For example, the DNS Nintendo wifi exploit people discovered a few years ago. This isn't cheating. I do sometimes exploit glitches and bugs in video games, but only if I need/want to. If I lose my data in the process of exploiting the glitch wrong, then that's my fault, and mine only.