Are in-game cheats good?

[sserega]

As the burgeoning game industry grew, more games started instituting cheats in one form or another. Some cheats were intentional and meant to accompany the titles gameplay, while others were left in as relics of the game development process.
However, as the gaming industry grew to accept game cheats, many gamers have started to abuse them, which has lead
gamerdom into a muddled mess of gaming morality. Are in-game cheats good for gamers? for industry?

[The_Sinister_Mastermind]

I don't mind cheats in a game, of course if someone uses cheats against you to beat you that's annoying but generally I don't think they're a bad thing. If a gamer purchases a game and has beaten the game that day due to the fact they used cheats well honestly that’s just sad and it sucks to be them as any sense of victory they will have will be fast fading and rather hollow.

The way I tend to go about it is like this. Beat the game on easy to get used to everything, then beat it on hard to really test my skill, after which time I have fun mucking around with cheats and all that.

If you use cheats to beat the game first time around chances are you’ll always use cheats to beat the game, you get to a point that’s just a little to tough or you just can’t be bothered to do it properly right now so you cheat. Before you know it once again you’ve completed the game and it wasn’t even a challenge. So why pray tell did you go and spend $80 on it?

Well that's my 2 cents on the topic anyway.

[Dosser]

I used to like them, when I was 8 years old and god-moding through commander keen seemed like a genuine accomplishment.

I think it depends on the game and type of cheat. ANY unintended benefit you can get from a multiplayer game (be that through map-hacking, aimbots, or sometimes ingame cheats, hacking opponents comps) is always just plain wrong.

In single player games, it doesn't really affect anyone else (as long as you don't go on forums and say '1 B3ATS K33N !n 2 mins, I iz teh 31337'), though I still wouldn't use them. The exception is cheats which make the game harder rather than easier, for example the exploits in early mario games which let the player into otherwise inaccessible worlds.

Having said that, I loved Goldeneye and Perfect Dark where you earned cheats for finishing levels in (impossibly) quick times or doing well in practise modes. Again, there were ways to cheat to access the cheats which is totally different.

[HappyHarvick29]

I definately think that cheat take something away from the game, mainly your sense of accomplishment. Take the Sims for example, it's fun for about a day using cheats, but the game takes on a whole new level when you actually have to EARN money to buy what you want. It makes it all that much better when you finally save enough money.

But it is always fun to cheat and blast away everyone in First Person Shooters.

[Drewbert]

Drewbert here, hailing from the GameSpy forums. Take a look at these links:

http://www.forumplanet.com/gamespy/topi ... id=1842628
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http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/sh ... d=24300122
.
http://forums.gameinformer.com/gi/board ... 89#M148289
.
http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/forums.asp?s=3&c=12&t=10471
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http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15431927
.
http://www.4u-servers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=403
.
http://forums.gametrailers.com/showthread.php?t=20574
.
http://www.gamingforums.com/showthread.php?t=239447
.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/show ... ost8005201
.
http://www.dosgames.com/forum/about7077.html
.
http://forums.filefront.com/showthread.php?t=239447
.
http://www.sharkyforums.com/showthread.php?t=281375
.

The list goes on and on...

It appears the text of his posts, all of them, comes from this article:
http://www.games.net/features/107524.shtml

Side note, I found two forums where he did not make this topic:
link
.
http://www.games.net/community/forums/i ... ategory=pc

[MOD EDIT: Link shortened. Please be mindful of others when posting links, I have a widescreen monitor and that link still stretched the page]

[franpa]

Drewbert's sidenote

shrink your side note via url tags.

[486 player]

When a game's too hard, it's only a blessed thing if they exists. I cheat only in these cases. (Exeption: Doom 2)

[The_Sinister_Mastermind]

I still try and beat the game at least once without reverting to cheats, otherwise I find at the next hard bt it's to easy to just go "Aw screw it I've sued cheats before, I'll just use them again".

[JKSM]

Cheating is only good when you're stuck in a game & cannot solve it for days so you find out the answer for just that portion (but don't be too relient on cheats). Usually you won't get as much enjoyment when cheating as when you play it yourself because when playing the game yourself, you get to solve puzzles or master the skills (shooting, jumping, planning etc) necessary to complete a level.

If one cheats after finishing the game by oneself, then it wouldn't really matter. You may even get double the enjoyment - from playing the game yourself & thereafter from using cheats.

Ultimately, it's up to individuals how much enjoyment they want want out of the game so its their decision whether they want to cheat or not. However, players should not use cheats at multiplayer games unless all players in that game agree to use cheats.

There are various cases that I consider using cheats are alright:

1) Getting stuck in part of the game & cannot solve for days so getting the answer for just that part helps one progress in the game that you would otherwise give up.

2) To try out the feel of the extra features. For eg, the first time I played virtua cop 2 was on my own. After I had finished the entire game, I replayed the whole game using the cheats to try out the different unlimited weapons. It was fun, getting to use weapons that you don't use as well as modifiying some features to make the game different.

3) When the game has several levels and cannot be saved. Can't remember which game. Anyway, played the game until a certain level and too tired to continue so when playing the game on another day, didn't want to replay through all the previous levels so used the level skip to get to the level that I'd stopped. For games that can't be saved, cheating through save state helps as one doesn't have to replying the entire game just to try the part where you died. In the case of games that require credits just to continue the game to the end. Cheating to have unlimited credit to finish the game in a game where it would not be possible without it.

4) Some games have funny cheats that you will never see when playing the game normally.

In the above 4 cases methods of cheating does not damage the enjoyment of the game so I support those who use these. However, if it is to cheat by getting extra weapons & skills etc, it should not be used as it would damaged one's enjoyment. The developer designed the game such that it would be played in a certain way using certain resources to finish the game. If someone cheats by getting extra resources or getting an easier way to exit, he would not find the enjoyment of thinking out how to solve the game or mastering a skill to defeat the boss. If the game is imppossible to beat, that is a different case. Otherwise, if someone does not mind having less enjoyment than he would have gotten by playing himself, he can use the extra cheats.

No matter what, the gaming industry developer should still have varous cheats built in-game and leave it to the gamer to decide whether he wants to use them. That way, each gamer can choose whether he wants to use certain cheats.

[Guest]

if you buy the game and cheat you are ripping your self off

[The_Sinister_Mastermind]

No necessarily, I buy lots of games and as I said I don’t mind cheating. I don’t play MMO or many online multiplayer games at all for that matter, but I can understand how annoying cheaters would be in those. But, in regular games, if you’ve gone through and beaten the game a couple of times over, I see no reason why not to cheat and have a bit of extra fun. I usually try and complete a game on hard before ever cheating, that way next time I play the game when I come to one of those hard points I know I can beat it, it might just take a little while, and that I don’t need to resort to cheating, but since I know I can and have beaten it, it doesn’t matter so much if I do.

[Guest]

you rip your self off if you havent finished the game

[JKSM]

you rip your self off if you havent finished the game

In a way, this is true, depending on the game. In most games, the game is designed to perform certain actions in certain sequences. If you cheat, you wouldn't have to follow the sequence to solve and can go straight to the end. It becomes easier to play. For example, once when I was playing apogee's Secret Agent and became bored of playing. Then I used the in-built invincible cheat to play the level just to see what the level is like. However, the fun of playing is no longer there. Playing the game the normal way, one would have to collect keys in certain sequence, deactivate the laser etc. However, using the cheat, I could short-cut jump through all the lasers and go direct to get items in any sequence. The fun of thinking how to solve it was no longer there. Anyway, I was bored of playing the game already so it didn't matter if I cheated. It was just to see the map of the level. In future, when I feel like playing the game again, I'll play it the normal way.

I'm sure that if you ask people who complete entire games by themselves without cheating, most are likely to say that they enjoyed the game.

However, there are games were people have commented that there seem to be no way of completing it the normal way. In those cases, I suppose it's okay to cheat a little rather than forever not completing the game.

In the old days, couldn't find ways to cheat at games and I completed a number of games on my own and found it extremely enjoyable. Of course, that also involves more time by replaying levels many times just to master the techinque of completing the level. Be it platform, puzzle, strategy etc, you get the satisfaction & fun of finally thinking out the correct way of solving the level. Using a cheat would be equivalent to skipping a level because you would never see the unquiness of the level.

[The_Sinister_Mastermind]

Once you’ve completed a game clean, no cheats or anything, you can add a new level of enjoyment by going back and playing with cheats as well.

[JKSM]

The_Sinister_Mastermind so far what games have you use cheats on after completing?

For myself, there were only a few but the most memorable is Virtua Cop2 and Space Change for Apple II. For Space Change, I could make the opponent get annoyed / clumsy more which made it funny.

There is sometimes an overlap between cheats and easter eggs. These access an extra level or see a scene you never seen before if you do not complete a game with x number of points.

[The_Sinister_Mastermind]

So far from memory: Baldurs Gate, Evil Genius, Quake II, Quake III, Quake III TA, Half Life, Blue Shift, Opposing Force, Red Alert 2, GTA III, GTA VC, AoE... probably more, can't really remember. Though I don't actually look up cheats for games until I've completed them several times though.