# 'Cheating' in single player games **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [July 2, 2009, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706 "2009-07-02T15:50:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Hoopy\_Frood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoopy_frood/32/8452_2.png) [@Hoopy\_Frood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoopy_Frood)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/101 "2009-07-06T15:26:15Z")
> [@CrazyChop](#): > > As for speech challenges in Fallout 3, this is how I see it. The designers made Charisma a dump stat. Some people doesn’t want to be bothered with it, and hence make the choice to say “this is a faulty design, screw it, I am going to just save and reload”. For me I just accept my lot and give a 6 for Charisma and invest in Speech. Except for the following: You can’t exceed 100 in speech regardless of your charisma, so it’s rather useless as a skill boost. Charisma can, however, increase a characters disposition toward you. But so can karma, once again lowering the usefulness of the stat. (Although, charisma will work regardless of alignment. But then again, I’m guessing you’ll be hard pressed to get a good success chance from someone of opposite alignment anyway). Even with a full out speech check and matching karma/charisma, there are speech challenges in the game that still have chance of failure. And for any that care, I boosted speech pretty consistently through my game, so it wasn’t as if I wasn’t at least attempting to make a character with a golden tongue. Speech was a bad mechanic in FO3, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2009, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/102 "2009-07-06T16:33:38Z")
It appears that the anti-cheaters’ main complaint is people who cheat at a game and then brag about their exploits. However, I don’t think anyone in this thread is denying that one forfeits any and all bragging rights when one uses a cheat. Like many others, I always abstain from cheats on my first play-through. The more I’ve played a game, though, the more inclined I’ll be to fiddle around with it. In Fallout 3 I may just remove an encumbrance limit, or I may add extra perks to my character and give him unique weapons that would be a time-consuming hassle to get the legit way. In the latter case I’m playing more for the scenery and the music than anything else, and there’s something about mowing down enemies with a gatling laser that makes the music sound better. In other cases I’ll fiddle around with a game to explore and appreciate its structure. Sometimes it’s fun to see how a game of Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri unfolds if I use the map editor to cover every land tile with forest, or with mag tubes. Maybe I’ll start a game of Civ IV and see what happens if I plunk every wonder into my first city on the first turn; maybe I’ll grant myself every technology to see just how useful endgame tech is without resources or large cities. Maybe I’ll place wonders in their historical cities as they’re founded. My knowledge of the inner workings of programs is minimal, but I know how to crack open a text file for Rome: Total War, alter a small part of a single line, and all of a sudden my principes throw scorpion bolts instead of pila. It’s not anywhere near playing the legit way, but it is _hilarious_. In short, I see a video game not as a challenge to be overcome and bragged about, but as a toy to be played with. Playing with a toy in unconventional ways is still perfectly valid. If I saw a child playing with action figures, and he had He-man team up with the Decepticons to fight the Ninja Turtles, I wouldn’t yell at him for playing with them the wrong way. He’s not playing with them the way they’re “supposed” to be played with, but that’s not the point. ---
**Author:** ![emcee2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emcee2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emcee2k)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/103 "2009-07-07T01:04:59Z")
> [@kushiel](#): > > I dunno, you tell me how 20+ hours of level grinding is a challenge. I see it as the developers saying ‘Oh hey, we’ve set out 15 hours of plot and characterization. Let’s put in another 30 hours of level grinding. Hmmm, well, we can just recolour this sprite 3 times and make each colour a harder enemy, and then we can initiate a random battle every three steps!’ > [@Bosstone](#): > > Turns out it’s possible to put plot in games. Freaky, I know. They make games that are just plots with no game play at all. They call them movies. Freaky, I know. > [@pedescribe](#): > > Sometimes, cheating adds to the challenge, as people have been explaining throughout the thread. That’s obviously not cheating. > [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > Is playing make-believe challenging? Not really. But it is fun. > > Consider a game like [Flower](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_(video_game)). Your goal is to collect petals. It’s not hard, there’s no time limit, and no way to lose. There’s no real challenge to it, but it’s still a satisfying and interesting experience. > > If the only thing that makes games fun is the challenge, why is \*Flower \*fun? > > I think one of the things that has been holding back the evolution of games as an art form is the idea that they must \*always \*be structured so that they require significant effort to beat. It’s like dismissing ballet as viable form of entertainment because the dancers aren’t competing for a prize. If they invent something fun and interactive, with no real challenge, great, but that’s not a game. There used to be a commercial for a computer with someone saying “Every time I get a new game, I go online and find codes so I can beat it faster”. It annoyed me that not only was he not even going to attempt to play without cheating, he actually considered that “beating” the game. When in fact, as soon as you resort to cheating, the game has beat you. No, it doesn’t personally affect me, so it shouldn’t bother me. But it does. I’m not saying you can’t cheat on your own game. It’s not like I’m going to run into your house and club you over the head if you do. I just think it’s stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/104 "2009-07-07T01:27:17Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > I was called out of town on biz… > > I see some peeps have agreed with me and made posts I fully agree with. It appears that if a few people have tangentially agreed with you, it’s been with a “But only on the first playthrough” proviso, with all bets being off for subsequent replays. I think there might be one or two posters of the Older Generation taking the same “Damn kids not playing the game right!” attitude as you, but nearly everyone else in the thread is disagreeing with you (or so it seems). > [@](#): > > As I’ve said before, it’s your life. Yes, it bugs me but do what you will. Then why are you ranting about it on a messageboard and going to so much trouble to tell people how much the way they play the game at home alone irritates you? > [@](#): > > I do, however, like to participate in ‘strategy’ boards…where people discuss strategy/the game. However, most posts are irritating to me because IT IS TERRIBLE STRATEGY. > > Why is it terrible? > > - They play on too easy a level. You will go back and forth a bit until you realize that this must be the case and so you ask ‘what difficulty level do you play on?’ Invariably it is ‘baby cake walk mode’. Well, hell dude…ANY strategy will work on baby cakewalk mode! Play at a real, manly level next time! > > - It is terrible strategy because they cheat. For example, in Civ someone will recommend (just making this up) - build 2 armies right off the bat and attack the player next door! I then ask…“What do you do if the 2 armies don’t take the city?” (actually this is the most probable outcome)…silence…This is because THEIR answer is that their armies ALWAYS take the city. Well…DUH!..ANY strategy will work if you don’t allow it to fail! > > So…go ahead and cheat. However, do it in private. Do NOT pretend you have actually played the game. Also, for the love of Pete, do not advocate to others reloading after failed speech challenges in FO3. 🙂 Ah, I see. So you don’t actually play many PC games at all, besides _Civilisation_, and therefore have no idea what you’re actually talking about. If you _really_ cared about strategy you’d be playing Chess at International Grand Master level. But you’re not. You’re playing Civ and trying to make yourself feel good about beating it on Deity level. You know what? No-one cares. It’s a game. An excellent game, but only a game nonetheless. Why not re-post your rant on the strategy board you frequent? Then you can have everyone there agree with you and everyone’s happy. There’s no difference, when you think about it, between modding a copy of _Fallout 3_ (And have you actually played the game, or are you just seizing on it as an oft-mentioned titled in an effort to sound like someone who doesn’t wear a tweed jacket, smoke a pipe, and drive an Austin-Healey?) and fiddling around with a car. Sure, a (for example) “factory” BMW E60 M5 has a top speed of around 250km/h, but there are any one of a number of modifications and tune-ups available to make it go much faster (get rid of the speed inhibitor and the car will do around 300km/h, for example). But, by your logic, every petrolhead on the planet is “Cheating” for “Modifying” their car. But I’m sure you’ll say “No, that’s not what I meant at all!” There is absolutely no difference, IMHO, between modifying or customising a car to suit the owner’s preferences, and “modding” or using cheat codes in a computer game to provide for a more enjoyable experience for the individual user. Just because you don’t get The Stig to do a playthrough of _Fallout 3_ or _Civilisation IV_ after it’s been modified doesn’t change the fact that the item’s performance has been modified from original to provide a better experience for the user, and this is a perfectly valid, acceptable, (and in most cases, desirable) thing to do. If you don’t want to mod or use cheat codes in games, you’re quite welcome to avoid their use. It’s a perfectly cromulent personal choice. But choosing to use mods or cheat codes in single-player games is _also_ a perfectly acceptable choice as well. There’s no “moral high ground” to be taken by wrapping yourself in the Flag Of True Strategy and declaring yourself a Patriot To The Ideals Of Playing Games On Really Hard Difficulty Levels. If that makes you happy, great. But don’t presume to lecture other people on what they should be doing with their entertainment sources. > [@Max\_the\_Immortal](#): > > In short, I see a video game not as a challenge to be overcome and bragged about, but as a toy to be played with. Playing with a toy in unconventional ways is still perfectly valid. If I saw a child playing with action figures, and he had He-man team up with the Decepticons to fight the Ninja Turtles, I wouldn’t yell at him for playing with them the wrong way. He’s not playing with them the way they’re “supposed” to be played with, but that’s not the point. Bravo! Couldn’t have put it better myself- I agree completely. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/105 "2009-07-07T01:47:22Z")
I like slaughtering things. Not just defeating them, but crushing them and all their little friends. If I’m not good enough to slaughter things without help (which is the case most of the time), I’ll cheat. I just finished _Freelancer_, for example, and I didn’t cheat, because every time I got a new ship I was able to waste other people’s ships more or less at will for a while. ---
**Author:** ![Auntbeast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Auntbeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Auntbeast)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/106 "2009-07-07T01:48:19Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Seriously, there’s somebody who thinks I’m a low down dirty cheater because I _set the game on easy_? I paid for the damned game, I’m not good at games where you shoot things, I want to enjoy the thing. It isn’t fun to die and die and die and die and never get to play the damned game - so conveniently, the game developers realized that people have different skill levels and gave me an easy setting, so I can enjoy a game I paid for. I didn’t realize it made me a _bad person_. > > Honestly, if you’re so tired of “cheating”, go out to a real irradiated wasteland and learn how to kill mercenaries and scavenge your own food and water. Playing _Fallout_ instead is just cheating! Did I write this? Do a google search for fallout death loop. I had a choice, either die, get up, die, get up, die, get up etc. Restart after 20 hours of play, or find a cheat to get me out of a loop. I was really surprised it had such a wonky option. RPG’s usually will revive you at a particular location, usually away from the fray. I love post-apocalyptic stuff, I suck at FPS’s. God Mode Please! ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/107 "2009-07-07T02:35:20Z")
Oh man. I started a new game of Fallout 3 last night. And the first thing I did? Loaded a mod that puts a set of mirrored sunglasses into the game, opened up the console, and “player.additem 0305c99f 1” (or whatever the hell the item code was) and cheated those shiny shades right into my inventory. I should really mod that mod to give them a +1 charisma stat, too, cuz they’re just so damned sexy. Re-textured leather armor (that’s not really cheating, I guess) and the shades and a laser pistol, I’m too sexy for the Capitol Wasteland. The OP can go suck eggs. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/108 "2009-07-07T02:45:59Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > Obviously, a game like solitaire is only played to be won, but even then there’s some room for cheating to keep it interesting. Like “hmm, I wonder what would have happened if I’d moved the 2 of clubs onto the red three instead of the 2 of spades” and then you find that, as luck would have it, all the cards you would have needed were in that pile. Sometimes solitaire is played to keep your hands busy. I used to fish. I used to fish without a lure or bait - gaming the system to loose. I didn’t want to catch anything, I wanted the peace of sitting in the boat casting. But often it is more fun to win than it is to loose. A lot of computer games are about releasing stress by killing things. Or about the enjoyment of playing - if its more frustrating than relaxing - then it isn’t any fun and why play it? If you can cheat through it, it might be fun again after this one thing you are banging your head against. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/109 "2009-07-07T03:03:25Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > There is absolutely no difference, IMHO, between modifying or customising a car to suit the owner’s preferences, and “modding” or using cheat codes in a computer game to provide for a more enjoyable experience for the individual user. Well, there’s _one_ difference. Assuming all of the components are functioning properly, I’m still getting my money’s worth if I leave the car unmodified. But if I get to a certain point in an (unmodded) game, and no matter how I try, no matter what I do, I simply cannot get past that point and thus cannot finish the game, I’m _not_ getting my money’s worth. I paid for the _whole_ game, not just that portion up to the point where I find myself stymied, and if I cannot finish the game, I’ve wasted my money. This is in fact what happened the first time I played through WarCraft II (or maybe it was III - it’s been a few years). There was a scenario perhaps 60% of the way into the game that, for whatever reason, I just couldn’t wrap my head around. I actually worked at it for several days, trying many different strategies, each of which failed. I finally broke down and looked up the cheat codes, used them as necessary to get me past that scenario, and then didn’t need to use them after that. Had I just given up and stopped at that point, as far as I’m concerned I wouldn’t have gotten the game I paid for. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/110 "2009-07-07T03:05:12Z")
> [@emcee2k](#): > > There used to be a commercial for a computer with someone saying “Every time I get a new game, I go online and find codes so I can beat it faster”. It annoyed me that not only was he not even going to attempt to play without cheating, he actually considered that “beating” the game. When in fact, as soon as you resort to cheating, the game has beat you. To reiterate, nobody here is defending that attitude. In fact, I’d wager that the guy who wrote that line wasn’t a gamer; after all, when was the last time anything on television depicted a video game accurately? Television _always_ gets it wrong. (“I have a level 60 night elf mage!” No you fucking don’t!) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/111 "2009-07-07T03:34:01Z")
Ok, this is getting ridiculous. The other day in Fallout 3 I used console commands to give myself Liberty Prime’s laser, make myself 25 feet tall and invincible. Nothing could kill me and I could dismember anything in one shot. Cheating? Undoubtedly. Fun? You bet your ass. Unless you want to impose some sort of fun embargo let people cheat away. It’s not fun to lose your two armies (or whatever), and the purpose of a game is…well, _fun_. If you buy a set of golf clubs and play on your own land in your own time, who the hell cares if you give yourself constant Mulligans or modify your clubs or whatever (maybe you’re not gonna win any US Opens, but chances are you’re not gonna care). If it’s fun, it justifies it; it’s your money, your product, which gives you the right to use the product however you please. ---
**Author:** ![emcee2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emcee2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emcee2k)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/112 "2009-07-07T03:39:16Z")
> [@Max\_the\_Immortal](#): > > To reiterate, nobody here is defending that attitude. In fact, I’d wager that the guy who wrote that line wasn’t a gamer; after all, when was the last time anything on television depicted a video game accurately? Television _always_ gets it wrong. (“I have a level 60 night elf mage!” No you fucking don’t!) Television or not, I know a lot of people with that attitude. Not just believing they beat the game when they didn’t, but immediately entering infinite ammo, invisibility, “God Mode” or whatever codes as soon as they get a game without even _attempting_ even easy mode. Or running to a walk through the moment they’re not sure what to do next in an RPG, or, worse yet playing the game from the beginning, “Players’ Guide” in hand. They don’t even the give the game a chance the way that the designers and programmers created it. It’s like putting a movie in your player and fast-forwarding over huge chunks, then saying you watched it. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/113 "2009-07-07T03:54:33Z")
> [@emcee2k](#): > > Television or not, I know a lot of people with that attitude. Not just believing they beat the game when they didn’t, but immediately entering infinite ammo, invisibility, “God Mode” or whatever codes as soon as they get a game without even _attempting_ even easy mode. Or running to a walk through the moment they’re not sure what to do next in an RPG, or, worse yet playing the game from the beginning, “Players’ Guide” in hand. So I guess you have a problem with travel guides to real-world locations as well, right? Next time you stop in at the Vatican or London or Saigon, you’re just going to wander around aimlessly and hope you discover all the interesting stuff worth seeing before you leave? And as has been repeatedly pointed out in this thread, modern games are more about the journey than the destination. You don’t “Beat” them, you _finish_ them. Which again proves you’re not a gamer (or you’d know this), which means you forfeit your right to object to how (some) people play modern computer games. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/114 "2009-07-07T04:23:11Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > And as has been repeatedly pointed out in this thread, modern games are more about the journey than the destination. You don’t “Beat” them, you _finish_ them. Which again proves you’re not a gamer (or you’d know this), which means you forfeit your right to object to how (some) people play modern computer games. I’m on your side on this debate, for the record, but I have to disagree here. “Beating” a game is still a perfectly usable term. I’ll say that I recently “beat” Half-life 2 or some other such game, especially if I’ve already played it once (which I’ll admit I may say “completed” the first time through). Granted, when _I_ hear people say they beat Warcraft III my first response is “man, that Arthas dude is a bastard, huh?” Moreso than “what ended up being your winning strategy on March of the Scourge”\* so that seems to be where me and emcee differ. - I defy anyone who’s played WCIII on hard to not curse the very name of this mission, along with **Blackrock and Roll too** and **Under the Burning Sky**. ---
**Author:** ![Robin\_Goodfellow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Robin\_Goodfellow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robin_Goodfellow)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/115 "2009-07-07T04:28:58Z")
This is a bizarre thing to argue about. I am, I guess, what you could consider one of the Older Generation of gamers, from a time before Game Genies and mods. There were cheat codes, yes, but they were never open-ended and usually existed just so you could keep playing the game rather than seeing the title screen again. Think Konami code or free continues. This parallels playing your favorite game in the arcade with your friends. If you feed it your whole allowance’s worth of quarters, then hey - you’re obviously just playing to have fun. If you insist on beating it in one Continue - you’re playing it to conquer the game. Different people play games for different reasons. None of these reasons are the wrong reason for the person playing the game. But, when those ‘gamer personality’ types mix and argue about how to play, it can get pretty messy. How do you explain to a new bowler playing with gutter-guards that their score doesn’t count next to a professional player? How do you tell a stock racer that some people like the thrill of driving on pro courses without getting their car to spec? … Okay, those are crappy analogies. But the fact that they’re crappy analogies points to why it’s bizarre to have this argument. Videogaming is a relatively new hobby, and people do it for wildly different reasons. Yes, it’s your $50. But if someone walks up and tells me they ‘beat Half-Life/Fallout/Peggle,’ I expect that means I can reasonably expect them to sympathize with how goddamn hard the boss of Level 3 is, and we can share stories about our favorite way of getting through the prerequisite stealth section. However, if they one-shotted the boss of Level 3 and level-skipped the stealth section, then we have nothing to talk about. We didn’t play the same game. We can both reasonably say that we put the same game in the same slot, and even saw the same ending and credits, but beyond that the actual Game part is totally unrelatable. I recently played inFamous about the same time as a coworker, and we were both pretty delighted when the game saw our performance on the first section and automatically offered to switch us to Hard mode. His response was, “hell yeah I’ll play your hard mode; you got anything more difficult?!” 😃 I can’t expect everyone to play games like I do. People pay their money and get their fun how they want it. But the people who use cheats in every single game, I find, are usually solo players who don’t interact with many other gamers. Not that they’re ashamed of how they play at all, nor should they be–just that plenty of socially-connected gamers consider that one stealth section a challenge, not an annoyance, and want to be able to swap stories about what the game is like as an experience, which is hard to do when the swapée did not have the same level of challenge, if they were challenged at all. I’ll caveat and say that modding a game so you can have sweet shades is not actually cheating - it is awesome. 😃 Seriously, tho, there are plenty of mods in Fallout 3 that actually increase the difficulty, or just modify the sky, or something else that changes the game laterally. Mods in and of themselves aren’t necessarily game-breaking. It’s a silly thing to judge people for, but it’s also silly to think that some people’s version of fun can’t involve the feeling of accomplishment from beating a game on Hard. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/116 "2009-07-07T06:18:03Z")
> [@emcee2k](#): > > That’s obviously not cheating. > > … > > If they invent something fun and interactive, with no real challenge, great, but that’s not a game. Your definitions of ‘cheating’ and ‘game’ are not universally shared. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/117 "2009-07-07T06:36:42Z")
> [@emcee2k](#): > > Or running to a walk through the moment they’re not sure what to do next in an RPG, or, worse yet playing the game from the beginning, “Players’ Guide” in hand. > > They don’t even the give the game a chance the way that the designers and programmers created it. It’s like putting a movie in your player and fast-forwarding over huge chunks, then saying you watched it. These parts aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, I just want to say. World of Warcraft is a prime modern offender between being practically required to watch boss videos beforehand but also having to know arcane behind the scenes stuff about your class and use 3rd party mods (some of which Blizzard added later because they were a good idea). It got to the point where this isn’t player institutionalized, the raids are more or less unwinnable without this knowledge. And now that I think about it, Blizz actually includes guides with all their Battle Chests now (though Blizzard games have gotten somewhat notorious for somewhat baffling scenarios, especially defense maps) But this isn’t the only case, Earthbound shipped with a players guide, at least implying they probably intended you to use it and I’m not entirely convinced that help hotlines weren’t Sierra’s ACTUAL business model, with the games being merely a facilitator (okay, that last one is a joke… maybe). Also, sometimes something seems not to be working and you look at a strategy guide just to make sure you’re not crazy (i.e. see if it takes a bit to “stick”). For example, in WCIII (yes, that again) there were several missions on hard where I was relieved after looking it up that I was, indeed, using the correct strategy, it was just a matter of pulling it off. Or, bouncing back to Earthbound, the “fuck you” boss that is the Clumsy Robot, which is pretty much a joke boss that causes people to panic and reset their game before they get to the cutscene that defeats it because it appears unbeatable. (see: [Guide Dang It!](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GuideDangIt) for further examples) I know I probably extended that somewhat into territory you agree with (or at least I assume you acknowledge that sometimes developers don’t quite have their heads on straight in truly mind-boggling ways), but I just wanted to point out that guides and information sharing like that aren’t necessarily unintended. This especially holds true in certain playtesting styles (aka the “we never rotated out our testers so they got so hellishly good at the game we forgot you mere mortals wouldn’t be able to handle it in 900 years” style). ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/118 "2009-07-07T13:54:07Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > A lot of computer games are about releasing stress by killing things. This is exactly why I had Mortal Kombat for SNES. I later bought MK3 for SNES and found that my motor skills simply aren’t fast enough for the newer game. With nobody to play against and zero chance of passing even the first round against the AI, I bought a controller capable of cycling the start button really fast, putting the game in slo-mo. This limited my playable characters to Cyrax and Sektor but at least I could play the game and survive a few rounds. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/119 "2009-07-07T13:59:33Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > Well, there’s _one_ difference. Assuming all of the components are functioning properly, I’m still getting my money’s worth if I leave the car unmodified. But if I get to a certain point in an (unmodded) game, and no matter how I try, no matter what I do, I simply cannot get past that point and thus cannot finish the game, I’m _not_ getting my money’s worth. > > I paid for the _whole_ game, not just that portion up to the point where I find myself stymied, and if I cannot finish the game, I’ve wasted my money. > > This is in fact what happened the first time I played through WarCraft II (or maybe it was III - it’s been a few years). There was a scenario perhaps 60% of the way into the game that, for whatever reason, I just couldn’t wrap my head around. I actually worked at it for several days, trying many different strategies, each of which failed. I finally broke down and looked up the cheat codes, used them as necessary to get me past that scenario, and then didn’t need to use them after that. > > Had I just given up and stopped at that point, as far as I’m concerned I wouldn’t have gotten the game I paid for. Same for me with Silent Storm and Neverwinter Nights. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2009, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706/120 "2009-07-07T14:49:58Z")
> [@emcee2k](#): > > They make games that are just plots with no game play at all. They call them movies. Freaky, I know. Get back to me when they make a Half-Life 2 movie. Or a Psychonauts movie. Or a Planescape: Torment movie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheating-in-single-player-games/501706.md?page=7)