Don't Hate the Player
April 10, 2009 4:17 PM Subscribe
Why Do We Cheat? - The right, wrong, and why of videogame cheating. Go into virtually any gamer's forum, and you'll see the subject of using cheats and game hacks can stir quite a hornet's nest, particularly in online gaming. But even those using cheats in offline games, not wagering against or directly competing with anyone else, will draw the ire from others in the community, possibly because there are different types of players - that is, the difference between what Penny Arcade's Tycho once described as "people who play games in order to excel at them, and those who play games as a conduit to fantasy".
In-Game, In-Room, In-World: Reconnecting Video Game Play to the Rest
of Kids’ Lives
Here is a pretty good ethnographically based exploration of why players cheat in video games.
posted by mrmojoflying at 4:29 PM on April 10, 2009 [2 favorites]
of Kids’ Lives
Here is a pretty good ethnographically based exploration of why players cheat in video games.
posted by mrmojoflying at 4:29 PM on April 10, 2009 [2 favorites]
I cheat because GTA IV was great, but with 80% of the game completed it is no longer compelling enough for me to drive around three islands looking for a couple of hundred very specific pigeons to shoot.
Maybe, maybe if you could whack the pigeons with your bat, but probably not even then.
posted by Science! at 4:33 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
Maybe, maybe if you could whack the pigeons with your bat, but probably not even then.
posted by Science! at 4:33 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
This quote, from Gabe in the Slate article, more-or-less matches my feelings:
I don't play games for the challenge. I don't need or want to be punished by a game for making mistakes. ... I play to see the next level or cool animation. I don't play games to beat them I play games to see them.
posted by roll truck roll at 4:36 PM on April 10, 2009 [13 favorites]
I don't play games for the challenge. I don't need or want to be punished by a game for making mistakes. ... I play to see the next level or cool animation. I don't play games to beat them I play games to see them.
posted by roll truck roll at 4:36 PM on April 10, 2009 [13 favorites]
I don't cheat. Lame fuckers.
posted by autodidact at 4:43 PM on April 10, 2009
posted by autodidact at 4:43 PM on April 10, 2009
For me, cheating in multiplayer games is the only real sin. Cheating in single player so you can play with whatever your game calls the BFG2000...nothing wrong with that.
posted by Chan at 4:47 PM on April 10, 2009 [9 favorites]
posted by Chan at 4:47 PM on April 10, 2009 [9 favorites]
/\ /\ \/ \/ <> <> B A
I have a low threshhold for frustration for most games, though lately it's more because my laptop can't handle even 4-5 year old games. I cheat or I die.
posted by Decimask at 4:50 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
I have a low threshhold for frustration for most games, though lately it's more because my laptop can't handle even 4-5 year old games. I cheat or I die.
posted by Decimask at 4:50 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
OMG HAXXXX!
posted by Senor Cardgage at 4:52 PM on April 10, 2009
posted by Senor Cardgage at 4:52 PM on April 10, 2009
What? I wasn't cheating. Justin Bailey is my real name. Look, I'm a doctor! Don't you believe doctors?
And it's just coincidence that my dog is named Narpas Sword. Because he looks like a fuzzy little sword, or something.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:58 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
And it's just coincidence that my dog is named Narpas Sword. Because he looks like a fuzzy little sword, or something.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:58 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
I generally don't cheat the first time through a game, like Half-Life 2. If I go back in the play to simply blow off some steam by endlessly shooting x creature, yeah, god mode here I come.
I have on occasion been tempted to cheat when an otherwise fun game presents me with a "jumping challenge" or something else where the solution is obvious, but it's clear a half hour of tedium is going to be required to complete it. But I usually tough it out.
I don't do multi-player, mainly because I'm not 14 and my twitch muscle long ago were subsumed by the Hostess corporation.
posted by maxwelton at 5:01 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
I have on occasion been tempted to cheat when an otherwise fun game presents me with a "jumping challenge" or something else where the solution is obvious, but it's clear a half hour of tedium is going to be required to complete it. But I usually tough it out.
I don't do multi-player, mainly because I'm not 14 and my twitch muscle long ago were subsumed by the Hostess corporation.
posted by maxwelton at 5:01 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
I'm with roll truck roll about playing games "to see them". I love to uncover the game storyline - when playing HL2, it wasn't the combat that I enjoyed nearly so much as the way the environment hinted about what had happened in the history of the game world. Cheats can help me get there without dying a thousand times on the way.
I've read about the plot in games like Bioshock and Fallout 3, even though I haven't bought them, just because they're interesting. For Fallout 3, I hear about the RPG-like combat system and think: "Whoa. Too much effort. I just want to check out nuked D.C. Oh, dude, I heard there's a level in an old aircraft carrier! I wonder how they've aged it..."
posted by Clandestine Outlawry at 5:06 PM on April 10, 2009
I've read about the plot in games like Bioshock and Fallout 3, even though I haven't bought them, just because they're interesting. For Fallout 3, I hear about the RPG-like combat system and think: "Whoa. Too much effort. I just want to check out nuked D.C. Oh, dude, I heard there's a level in an old aircraft carrier! I wonder how they've aged it..."
posted by Clandestine Outlawry at 5:06 PM on April 10, 2009
I play games to have fun. At the point where the game becomes more work than work, the game has failed to entertain me.
While game publishers might not care if I ever play the game after they get my money, they should probably care that the incentive is becoming greater and greater for me to simply Youtube the cinemas from games rather than play through the grueling grindfest they call a game.
(And yeah, cheating in PvP games is bullshit as much as cheating in any other competitive game).
posted by yeloson at 5:12 PM on April 10, 2009 [2 favorites]
While game publishers might not care if I ever play the game after they get my money, they should probably care that the incentive is becoming greater and greater for me to simply Youtube the cinemas from games rather than play through the grueling grindfest they call a game.
(And yeah, cheating in PvP games is bullshit as much as cheating in any other competitive game).
posted by yeloson at 5:12 PM on April 10, 2009 [2 favorites]
The FPP links (and, on preview, comments) remind me of Nintendo's recent patent that lets you watch your games instead of play them. I agree with a lot of posters here that single-player games can be enjoyed in a lot of ways- you can challenge the machine or you can enjoy the scenery. While I personally don't think a passive approach to gaming takes advantage of the medium, it's all about personal enjoyment at the end.
Multiplayer cheaters, of course, are a different story.
posted by Maxson at 5:16 PM on April 10, 2009 [2 favorites]
Multiplayer cheaters, of course, are a different story.
posted by Maxson at 5:16 PM on April 10, 2009 [2 favorites]
- I have on occasion been tempted to cheat when an otherwise fun game presents me with a "jumping challenge"[...]
I miss Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. I broke into with childish giggles at the level designer sadism they put in front of me. Twisted, twisted bastards.
posted by Decimask at 5:31 PM on April 10, 2009
I will not play a game that doesn't have cheat codes or a solid trainer, as I'm not about to hold myself to the standards of some OCD developer who would tell me that the only way to play my game is their way.
I don't play games to get frustrated and throw the controller across the room, I play them to be God J. Almighty to some ones and zeros in my PC.
posted by bunnytricks at 5:41 PM on April 10, 2009
I don't play games to get frustrated and throw the controller across the room, I play them to be God J. Almighty to some ones and zeros in my PC.
posted by bunnytricks at 5:41 PM on April 10, 2009
I'd never cheat in a multiplayer game, but cheating in something like GTA IV? Heck yeah...
I like to be a little challenged by my games, but personally, I don't see much virtue in getting really, really good at pushing buttons on my PS3. I just wanna cause mayhem, blow stuff up, shoot a bunch of random people, and see where the story is going. If you could just skip various missions in GTA, I probably would have. I mean... chasing bikers down an underground train thing? Who cares?
That said -- I've got a friend who loves the little intricacies of the games, loves seeing what he can do, sans-cheat. So... to each their own, right?
posted by ph00dz at 5:47 PM on April 10, 2009
I like to be a little challenged by my games, but personally, I don't see much virtue in getting really, really good at pushing buttons on my PS3. I just wanna cause mayhem, blow stuff up, shoot a bunch of random people, and see where the story is going. If you could just skip various missions in GTA, I probably would have. I mean... chasing bikers down an underground train thing? Who cares?
That said -- I've got a friend who loves the little intricacies of the games, loves seeing what he can do, sans-cheat. So... to each their own, right?
posted by ph00dz at 5:47 PM on April 10, 2009
Generally, if a game frustrates me to the point that I need to cheat to beat it, I give up on the game. It's relatively rare that I'll bother to cheat unless I'm replaying the game for amusement.
(Though I am far from above FAQing the occasional "WTF am I supposed to do now?" moment. Usually I end up finding out that I'd actually tried the correct solution and just hadn't done it quite right and then discarded it as incorrect. Either that or some bit of game logic flummoxed me, such as this one puzzle/RPG game where everything reset when you went through a door... except the item you were carrying, if you happened to be carrying one. So the solution turned out to be to bring a particular item from several rooms AWAY into the room with the puzzle that had stymied me, at which point it wasn't even a puzzle anymore. I hadn't even tried to carry anything out of a room, because I knew everything reset and I assumed any objects in hand would reset likewise. I feel no guilt or remorse for having looked up that particular piece of inanity, nor any others like it.)
posted by Scattercat at 5:51 PM on April 10, 2009
(Though I am far from above FAQing the occasional "WTF am I supposed to do now?" moment. Usually I end up finding out that I'd actually tried the correct solution and just hadn't done it quite right and then discarded it as incorrect. Either that or some bit of game logic flummoxed me, such as this one puzzle/RPG game where everything reset when you went through a door... except the item you were carrying, if you happened to be carrying one. So the solution turned out to be to bring a particular item from several rooms AWAY into the room with the puzzle that had stymied me, at which point it wasn't even a puzzle anymore. I hadn't even tried to carry anything out of a room, because I knew everything reset and I assumed any objects in hand would reset likewise. I feel no guilt or remorse for having looked up that particular piece of inanity, nor any others like it.)
posted by Scattercat at 5:51 PM on April 10, 2009
It sounds like somebody got proximity mined one too may times in Goldeneye 64.
posted by clearly at 6:11 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by clearly at 6:11 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
Cheating in a single player game is like masturbation. It's just you. No one really fucking cares.
Oh, and no one believes you when you say you don't do it.
posted by Cyrano at 6:28 PM on April 10, 2009 [8 favorites]
Oh, and no one believes you when you say you don't do it.
posted by Cyrano at 6:28 PM on April 10, 2009 [8 favorites]
Cheating in a single player game is like masturbation. It's just you. No one really fucking cares.
Oh I beg to differ. I've seen people post videos of their runs on YouTube where it's clear they're using a tool assist, and the level of froth that builds in the comments goes into the red. Even in single-player games, as long as people are still posting scores and replays in forums, there are going to be people who care very much if someone is using hacks.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:32 PM on April 10, 2009
Oh I beg to differ. I've seen people post videos of their runs on YouTube where it's clear they're using a tool assist, and the level of froth that builds in the comments goes into the red. Even in single-player games, as long as people are still posting scores and replays in forums, there are going to be people who care very much if someone is using hacks.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:32 PM on April 10, 2009
I normally don't cheat, but when I do it's only to change the game experience rather than complete the game. Case in point, The Sims with all the expansions (yeah I'm into old school stuff). After awhile it gets really lame managing the Sims' day job, day in and day out just so they can pay bills, so I fatten their bank accounts so they can explore the expansion packs. I don't have enough time to do it any other way, really.
posted by crapmatic at 6:38 PM on April 10, 2009
posted by crapmatic at 6:38 PM on April 10, 2009
Marisa Stole the Precious ThingPoster: "Cheating in a single player game is like masturbation. It's just you. No one really fucking cares.
Oh I beg to differ. I've seen people post videos of their runs on YouTube where it's clear they're using a tool assist, and the level of froth that builds in the comments goes into the red. Even in single-player games, as long as people are still posting scores and replays in forums, there are going to be people who care very much if someone is using hacks."
But in an unregulated forum like youtube, what does it matter? When people really care about something they set up some sort of standards and judge each claim by those. See "The King of Kong". Most attempts at the championship were only accepted by being witnessed live and in person, then the introduction of sketchy recordings of runs is allowed and then called out. Allowing or almost even acknowledging claims supported by easily manipulated evidence is ridiculous and at this time pretty much unacceptable.
Also, youtube comments will run froth and flash into the red at the drop of a hat on any subject.
posted by Science! at 6:43 PM on April 10, 2009
Oh I beg to differ. I've seen people post videos of their runs on YouTube where it's clear they're using a tool assist, and the level of froth that builds in the comments goes into the red. Even in single-player games, as long as people are still posting scores and replays in forums, there are going to be people who care very much if someone is using hacks."
But in an unregulated forum like youtube, what does it matter? When people really care about something they set up some sort of standards and judge each claim by those. See "The King of Kong". Most attempts at the championship were only accepted by being witnessed live and in person, then the introduction of sketchy recordings of runs is allowed and then called out. Allowing or almost even acknowledging claims supported by easily manipulated evidence is ridiculous and at this time pretty much unacceptable.
Also, youtube comments will run froth and flash into the red at the drop of a hat on any subject.
posted by Science! at 6:43 PM on April 10, 2009
I painted a small dot in the middle of my LCD for rainbow six and have never looked back.
posted by phaedon at 6:50 PM on April 10, 2009
posted by phaedon at 6:50 PM on April 10, 2009
Also, youtube comments will run froth and flash into the red at the drop of a hat on any subject.
That they do, but in forums of single-player games, you'll also find rage against people using hacks. This is because people are posting replays of their runs for bragging rights, and someone who uses tool assists makes those who work at the game feel as though it's cheating.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:52 PM on April 10, 2009
That they do, but in forums of single-player games, you'll also find rage against people using hacks. This is because people are posting replays of their runs for bragging rights, and someone who uses tool assists makes those who work at the game feel as though it's cheating.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:52 PM on April 10, 2009
Having said that, I have "cheated" at games, only because I am absolutely stuck and want to advance. So I'll Google the solution and there we are, I can enjoy the game again. I mean seriously, who would've thought getting a frog across a road was going to be so difficult?
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:57 PM on April 10, 2009
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:57 PM on April 10, 2009
If it weren't for the code that gives you thirty lives in Contra, I would probably have never got good enough at the game that I can beat it without losing any lives at all.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:21 PM on April 10, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:21 PM on April 10, 2009 [2 favorites]
I helped write one of the final versions of the Hunter script for the EverQuest macro program. I helped find offset hacks for the game, too. I even helped offset the offset check that Sony added to the software, and, not surprizingly, that opened even more offset hacks. I ran a non-pvp kiting druid at SoW+2 starting 10 levels before I could even CAST SoW, and nobody noticed.
Really, in a non-pvp server, it's not an issue. I even had a gold farm from cheesemaking. Oh hells yea, I never went without Chanter crack again.
And then I switched to an all-pvp-all-the-time game, and while I didn't hack in PVP, I did hack the ever loving hell out of PvE, because PvE sucks and only exists as a conduit to PvP. I enjoyed finding glitches, and I had fun forcing de-syncs sometimes, but that just caused targeting issues for both of us.
The only games I haven't cheated at so far are PS3 games, just because, well, it's hard to. Hell, I even cheated on that game Pandemic when it was an FPP last year, just to see if I could freaking get madagascar before it closed up.
Griefer? No. Game cheater/hacker? Yes. Why? Because I can, and it's fun to learn the mechanics. Full healthbar = 255? Sweet.
posted by TomMelee at 8:16 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
Really, in a non-pvp server, it's not an issue. I even had a gold farm from cheesemaking. Oh hells yea, I never went without Chanter crack again.
And then I switched to an all-pvp-all-the-time game, and while I didn't hack in PVP, I did hack the ever loving hell out of PvE, because PvE sucks and only exists as a conduit to PvP. I enjoyed finding glitches, and I had fun forcing de-syncs sometimes, but that just caused targeting issues for both of us.
The only games I haven't cheated at so far are PS3 games, just because, well, it's hard to. Hell, I even cheated on that game Pandemic when it was an FPP last year, just to see if I could freaking get madagascar before it closed up.
Griefer? No. Game cheater/hacker? Yes. Why? Because I can, and it's fun to learn the mechanics. Full healthbar = 255? Sweet.
posted by TomMelee at 8:16 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
I would be a little more sympathetic of the argument that people want to toy around with the mechanics of an online game if it didn't have any effects on other people playing the game.
posted by Saydur at 8:44 PM on April 10, 2009
posted by Saydur at 8:44 PM on April 10, 2009
Try not sucking.
posted by autodidact at 9:04 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by autodidact at 9:04 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
One reason I use cheats in games is because a lot of times they're broken - to complete my first playthrough of Fallout 3, I had to use two cheats. I had to noclip once to complete a quest (there was an NPC would would intercept you, start a conversation, and then stand there silently forever), and I had to summon back an NPC from the void who mysteriously vanished due to a bug. So, there are things like that - a good solid cheating engine will do wonders for fixing a bugged game on the fly (noclip, especially, can fix many game-killing bugs.)
Other than that, I mostly just do it to screw around after I won the game. For another Fallout 3 example, did you know you can summon and use the laser that Liberty Prime wields? It violently insta-gibs anything in the game. Good times.
posted by Mitrovarr at 9:19 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
Other than that, I mostly just do it to screw around after I won the game. For another Fallout 3 example, did you know you can summon and use the laser that Liberty Prime wields? It violently insta-gibs anything in the game. Good times.
posted by Mitrovarr at 9:19 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
When I was a kid, at primary and then high school, where the biggest pressures in my life were going to school, passing tests and trying not to get beat up, video games were something that you played, learned like the back of your hand, mastered, got the highest score in. If you really, really liked the game, you'd write up your tips on how to get the best score or photographs of your best score and send it in to the video game magazine you liked the most, and hoped it'd get published.
Cheating was only something you'd consider if you were really, really stuck, because it was a badge of honor to be the kid who could beat Rush N Attack or whatever the current rock-hard game was on only 1 life, and because if your collection of video game mags didn't have the cheat you needed, the only way to get them was to call an expensive ($5 a minute usually) phone service to ask them for the cheat you needed. Cheating was, in my day, a last resort, a recourse only for the cowardly or the damned.
Today, as a casual gamer, I cheat when I need to and that is usually often. Understand that nowadays, I work at a job for 9 hours a day (+ 1 hour commute each way), 5 days a week, which leaves weekends free for household chores, spending time with my lady and family, the internet and, if time allows, sporadic progress on whatever game happens to have caught my attention at the moment.
I'll play games on my myriad of gaming consoles... Wii, PS3, DSi, PC and my iPhone... and I even enjoy them. I'll play them and try to beat them but if I get stuck and it takes me more than a few minutes to work out the solution, I'll cheat, because I'll be damned if I'm going to spend the two or three hours I have spare on a weekend trying to figure out how to flick that damned switch on the other side of the door in Lost Winds.
And cheats are in easy, ready supply. No more am I bound to gaming magazines and $5 a minute call to the gaming hotline to get my answers. If IGN, Gamespot or a Google search turn up empty, there's also Youtube walkthroughs and cheat newsgroups to turn to.
And I'm not at all ashamed because as I said, my spare time these days is finite, and beating a video game by oneself is no longer the badge of honor it once was.
This is why I cheat. Because I am part of the cowardly and the damned; an adult with responsibilities trying to cling onto the last vestiges of his youth, and because the cheats I need are but a mere Google search away.
God help me. God help us all...
posted by Effigy2000 at 9:30 PM on April 10, 2009 [7 favorites]
Cheating was only something you'd consider if you were really, really stuck, because it was a badge of honor to be the kid who could beat Rush N Attack or whatever the current rock-hard game was on only 1 life, and because if your collection of video game mags didn't have the cheat you needed, the only way to get them was to call an expensive ($5 a minute usually) phone service to ask them for the cheat you needed. Cheating was, in my day, a last resort, a recourse only for the cowardly or the damned.
Today, as a casual gamer, I cheat when I need to and that is usually often. Understand that nowadays, I work at a job for 9 hours a day (+ 1 hour commute each way), 5 days a week, which leaves weekends free for household chores, spending time with my lady and family, the internet and, if time allows, sporadic progress on whatever game happens to have caught my attention at the moment.
I'll play games on my myriad of gaming consoles... Wii, PS3, DSi, PC and my iPhone... and I even enjoy them. I'll play them and try to beat them but if I get stuck and it takes me more than a few minutes to work out the solution, I'll cheat, because I'll be damned if I'm going to spend the two or three hours I have spare on a weekend trying to figure out how to flick that damned switch on the other side of the door in Lost Winds.
And cheats are in easy, ready supply. No more am I bound to gaming magazines and $5 a minute call to the gaming hotline to get my answers. If IGN, Gamespot or a Google search turn up empty, there's also Youtube walkthroughs and cheat newsgroups to turn to.
And I'm not at all ashamed because as I said, my spare time these days is finite, and beating a video game by oneself is no longer the badge of honor it once was.
This is why I cheat. Because I am part of the cowardly and the damned; an adult with responsibilities trying to cling onto the last vestiges of his youth, and because the cheats I need are but a mere Google search away.
God help me. God help us all...
posted by Effigy2000 at 9:30 PM on April 10, 2009 [7 favorites]
I don't play games for the challenge. I don't need or want to be punished by a game for making mistakes. ... I play to see the next level or cool animation. I don't play games to beat them I play games to see them.
This makes zero sense to me and I guess it must be a generational thing. Why don't you just watch a movie? If you are just seeing a level or a cool animation it's not a game it's a movie. Probably why I still think Galaxian or Tempest or Frogger or hell even Qbert (which I despised with a passion) beats the crap out of modern games where half of what you do is sit passively and watch.
posted by spicynuts at 9:54 PM on April 10, 2009
This makes zero sense to me and I guess it must be a generational thing. Why don't you just watch a movie? If you are just seeing a level or a cool animation it's not a game it's a movie. Probably why I still think Galaxian or Tempest or Frogger or hell even Qbert (which I despised with a passion) beats the crap out of modern games where half of what you do is sit passively and watch.
posted by spicynuts at 9:54 PM on April 10, 2009
Define "cheating." When the Konami code is programmed into a game by the developers, what distinguishes it as a feature from anything else that occurs in the game? What about warping ahead to Level 4 in Super Mario Bros.?
Half of the early cheat codes, I'm convinced, were gimmicks for Nintendo Power or similar magazines. Either the magazines pushed for codes to be hidden in games to boost subscription rates, or publishers hid the codes in order to get the magazines to write about their games. Maybe both. But if the game's writer intended it to be Ghost 'n Goblins-difficult, and the invincibility code was only added later by at the insistence of the marketing staff, is that different from a game that was intended at the outset to have an Easter egg to mitigate its length or difficulty?
This makes zero sense to me and I guess it must be a generational thing.
I understand it. Playing GTA:3 was totally different from watching a movie: It's interactive. But that doesn't necessarily mean I wanted to complete all the missions. Sometimes I just wanted to drive around and shoot stuff, and I liked having a code that I could punch in to access the cooler weapons.
I kinda hate games with "story lines," as I think it's a facet that has been taken waaaaay too far. GTA's success, I think, was in rebelling against that trend; here was a game where you could go wherever and do whatever, whenever. You weren't locked into Missions X, Y, and Z; you could play them if you wanted, or you could go driving through the subway. I wish more games would go that route. How cool would it be to have a Star Trek game where you could just fly around the galaxy and explore, make first contact, violate the Neutral Zone, provoke the Borg, etc. Which I guess is a derail, except as it goes to Gabe's point about "mistakes": I'm not 'accidentally' trying to skip the water level, or whatever, any more than I'm accidentally skipping songs when I track-ahead on a CD.
posted by cribcage at 10:20 PM on April 10, 2009 [3 favorites]
Half of the early cheat codes, I'm convinced, were gimmicks for Nintendo Power or similar magazines. Either the magazines pushed for codes to be hidden in games to boost subscription rates, or publishers hid the codes in order to get the magazines to write about their games. Maybe both. But if the game's writer intended it to be Ghost 'n Goblins-difficult, and the invincibility code was only added later by at the insistence of the marketing staff, is that different from a game that was intended at the outset to have an Easter egg to mitigate its length or difficulty?
This makes zero sense to me and I guess it must be a generational thing.
I understand it. Playing GTA:3 was totally different from watching a movie: It's interactive. But that doesn't necessarily mean I wanted to complete all the missions. Sometimes I just wanted to drive around and shoot stuff, and I liked having a code that I could punch in to access the cooler weapons.
I kinda hate games with "story lines," as I think it's a facet that has been taken waaaaay too far. GTA's success, I think, was in rebelling against that trend; here was a game where you could go wherever and do whatever, whenever. You weren't locked into Missions X, Y, and Z; you could play them if you wanted, or you could go driving through the subway. I wish more games would go that route. How cool would it be to have a Star Trek game where you could just fly around the galaxy and explore, make first contact, violate the Neutral Zone, provoke the Borg, etc. Which I guess is a derail, except as it goes to Gabe's point about "mistakes": I'm not 'accidentally' trying to skip the water level, or whatever, any more than I'm accidentally skipping songs when I track-ahead on a CD.
posted by cribcage at 10:20 PM on April 10, 2009 [3 favorites]
spicynuts, it's because games have expanded from their purely skill-based roots. All of the games you listed are nothing without constant player input. (My favorite example of a purely skill-based game is Robotron 2084: just you, some survivors, and a lot of robots, forever. Get cracking.)
With the introduction of cutscenes, some people began playing games precisely because they want a mix of interactivity and cool animations. Sure, it dwindles the "purity" of the game, but it also allows a wider variety of gamers to enjoy them- for example, people with no reflexes or no patience to develop better reflexes. Many people became gamers because, when they saw Sephiroth emerge from a fiery background in Final Fantasy VII, they whispered "that is sooo cool". More gamers brings in more cash for more games and more lobbyists to make sure people can still make games (gotta keep the censors at bay), so without these gamers there wouldn't be an industry today.
So watching a game makes perfect sense when the word "gamer" applies to a big chunk of the population, because games have to be as diverse as their audience. Modern-day gamers have time restraints and limited patience and actual lives, so why not let them have fun in a size that fits? They'll never be any good at Street Fighter IV or Unidentified Fantastic Object anyway.
posted by Maxson at 10:32 PM on April 10, 2009
With the introduction of cutscenes, some people began playing games precisely because they want a mix of interactivity and cool animations. Sure, it dwindles the "purity" of the game, but it also allows a wider variety of gamers to enjoy them- for example, people with no reflexes or no patience to develop better reflexes. Many people became gamers because, when they saw Sephiroth emerge from a fiery background in Final Fantasy VII, they whispered "that is sooo cool". More gamers brings in more cash for more games and more lobbyists to make sure people can still make games (gotta keep the censors at bay), so without these gamers there wouldn't be an industry today.
So watching a game makes perfect sense when the word "gamer" applies to a big chunk of the population, because games have to be as diverse as their audience. Modern-day gamers have time restraints and limited patience and actual lives, so why not let them have fun in a size that fits? They'll never be any good at Street Fighter IV or Unidentified Fantastic Object anyway.
posted by Maxson at 10:32 PM on April 10, 2009
What about warping ahead to Level 4 in Super Mario Bros.?
Nah, you want to warp to 3 so you can turtle-tip. But not too much.
Anyone remember EAMON? That one was written in BASIC, so you could just stop it, and add multipliers to the line that generated your stats. In the public library. On Sunday afternoon.
Ah, mis-spent youth
posted by flotson at 10:40 PM on April 10, 2009 [2 favorites]
Nah, you want to warp to 3 so you can turtle-tip. But not too much.
Anyone remember EAMON? That one was written in BASIC, so you could just stop it, and add multipliers to the line that generated your stats. In the public library. On Sunday afternoon.
Ah, mis-spent youth
posted by flotson at 10:40 PM on April 10, 2009 [2 favorites]
I loved cheating in Quake, not because I could beat the game, but because I liked to see the mechanics. Make yourself invulnerable, then taunt some zombies and lead them around. The exploding blob things could kill zombies. The ogres, which had grenades just like yours, could not blow up zombies — interesting design flaw. Not a truly consistent world.
Set gravity to a negative number and some things land on the ceiling. Set friction to a negative number and a simple skid will send you whipping about the level until you slam into some corner (hope you've got God mode on when you hit that wall at the speed of sound). Set gravity and friction to a negative number, then blow someone up. Yup, heads will float in corners, spinning gently and dripping blood, forever.
Sometimes I miss those severed heads.
posted by adipocere at 11:28 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
Set gravity to a negative number and some things land on the ceiling. Set friction to a negative number and a simple skid will send you whipping about the level until you slam into some corner (hope you've got God mode on when you hit that wall at the speed of sound). Set gravity and friction to a negative number, then blow someone up. Yup, heads will float in corners, spinning gently and dripping blood, forever.
Sometimes I miss those severed heads.
posted by adipocere at 11:28 PM on April 10, 2009 [1 favorite]
What a timely thread, after a pretty good run in TF2 generally, yesterday I saw a guy who routinely hit 180 degree spin, quick-scope headshots on very good scouts, followed by a guy who critted every single time he used his secondary weapon (and when I went spec to check on him he went AFK for a few seconds and then stopped critting). Um, if you understood any of that you probably play too much TF2.
Cheat all you want in single player, no one cares, but there is a circle of hell reserved for online hackers.
posted by markr at 12:13 AM on April 11, 2009 [4 favorites]
Cheat all you want in single player, no one cares, but there is a circle of hell reserved for online hackers.
posted by markr at 12:13 AM on April 11, 2009 [4 favorites]
idiopath: I recently made a huge mistake in my latest nethack game (right after getting the wand of wishing at the castle, I put it in my bag of holding, along with an unidentified wand of cancelation ARGH!), and I fleetingly speculated that I should have cheated and savescummed. The game is not over by any means, but if I could back up to before the mistake, it would be much easier. The major game before this ended with my getting killed by pestilance about 20 steps from my altar - another case where savescumming would have been a relatively small cheat, and would have allowed me the small pleasure of winning (which is a big deal in a game that often takes a week or more to play to completion).
As a multi-ascender, let me say that, now, I really wish I had your kind of lack-of-skill. Let me explain.
Nethack is a game that seems horribly unfair to the player, but it turns out that this unfairness is almost entirely due to ignorance and carelessness. There are Nethack players (such as Marvin Bressler, of the Dev Team) who nearly always win. It's not just his skill that is shocking, it's that it's possible to attain that level of skill. Although the game had a lot of randomness, a player who knows what to do can almost certainly overcome it. His win record proves it: he has had multiple win streaks of 13 or more games.
I am nowhere near that good, but I'm not bad at all. You made a couple of bad decisions and lost two highly advanced games. I would not have made those mistakes and won them both. I speak with surety. This is due to this unobvious fact: Nethack is a very fair game. Fairness means the player is nearly always capable of winning, unless he does something to close that off. The fact that marvin's win streaks are possible proves fairness, and while he is one of the best players, he is not unique. Players with sufficent Nethack experiences know the awful truth of the game: ultimately, the game may be too fair. Or rather not so much fair as easy. All the challenge in Nethack, to a sufficently experienced/spoiled player, is at the front. The great majority of alt.org Nethack games that get to the Castle go on to win; the only players who die at this point are those who have only been there a handful of times or less.
So it comes to the point where, if you've played enough Nethack that you've won a few times, you begin to see that the real excitement in the game is at the beginning, when the player hasn't had a chance to build his armor class, hasn't gotten a great weapon, hasn't built up any essential or useful intrinsics, has few hit points, and hasn't identified more than a few of the game's many items.
My advice to you is relish your ignorance. You're almost there; it won't be long before you're winning left and right, and the game will seem a lot less monumental once that time comes. Cheating your a way to a win, really, will only accelerate the process.
posted by JHarris at 2:00 AM on April 11, 2009 [2 favorites]
As a multi-ascender, let me say that, now, I really wish I had your kind of lack-of-skill. Let me explain.
Nethack is a game that seems horribly unfair to the player, but it turns out that this unfairness is almost entirely due to ignorance and carelessness. There are Nethack players (such as Marvin Bressler, of the Dev Team) who nearly always win. It's not just his skill that is shocking, it's that it's possible to attain that level of skill. Although the game had a lot of randomness, a player who knows what to do can almost certainly overcome it. His win record proves it: he has had multiple win streaks of 13 or more games.
I am nowhere near that good, but I'm not bad at all. You made a couple of bad decisions and lost two highly advanced games. I would not have made those mistakes and won them both. I speak with surety. This is due to this unobvious fact: Nethack is a very fair game. Fairness means the player is nearly always capable of winning, unless he does something to close that off. The fact that marvin's win streaks are possible proves fairness, and while he is one of the best players, he is not unique. Players with sufficent Nethack experiences know the awful truth of the game: ultimately, the game may be too fair. Or rather not so much fair as easy. All the challenge in Nethack, to a sufficently experienced/spoiled player, is at the front. The great majority of alt.org Nethack games that get to the Castle go on to win; the only players who die at this point are those who have only been there a handful of times or less.
So it comes to the point where, if you've played enough Nethack that you've won a few times, you begin to see that the real excitement in the game is at the beginning, when the player hasn't had a chance to build his armor class, hasn't gotten a great weapon, hasn't built up any essential or useful intrinsics, has few hit points, and hasn't identified more than a few of the game's many items.
My advice to you is relish your ignorance. You're almost there; it won't be long before you're winning left and right, and the game will seem a lot less monumental once that time comes. Cheating your a way to a win, really, will only accelerate the process.
posted by JHarris at 2:00 AM on April 11, 2009 [2 favorites]
cribcage: I get the feeling that you'd really like Starflight.
posted by JHarris at 2:04 AM on April 11, 2009
posted by JHarris at 2:04 AM on April 11, 2009
JHarris: what lost my last game and delayed my current one was impatience, not lack of knowledge of the game. I am pretty thoroughly spoiled about the various techniques, but sometimes my excitement about what is happening in the game overtakes my good judgment and I start typing commands quickly as if that would be an advantage (sometimes I blame too much mudding, on a mud, typing in commands quickly will actually save your life).
posted by idiopath at 2:25 AM on April 11, 2009
posted by idiopath at 2:25 AM on April 11, 2009
Like others on this thread, I cheat. Usually I use them whenever the game just gets too frustrating to play, and I find myself doing the same thing over and over. This motivates some types to get better, but for me, I'd like to finish. Or at least play/see the other levels of the game.
I usually compromise. I avoid "God mode" and rely on things like infinite ammo and all weapons and such. Most of the time this is enough to get through most games.
The thing is, I want to finish because I have a life (or at least, that's the fiction I tell myself). I'd rather use cheats and spend 5 hours on a game and spend 45 other hours reading, being with friends, etc OR I can spend 50 hours on a game. Easy choice for me.
posted by zardoz at 3:21 AM on April 11, 2009
I usually compromise. I avoid "God mode" and rely on things like infinite ammo and all weapons and such. Most of the time this is enough to get through most games.
The thing is, I want to finish because I have a life (or at least, that's the fiction I tell myself). I'd rather use cheats and spend 5 hours on a game and spend 45 other hours reading, being with friends, etc OR I can spend 50 hours on a game. Easy choice for me.
posted by zardoz at 3:21 AM on April 11, 2009
I admit to savescumming on nethack, but I'm a real newbie. I wish I had done it more... my cat hit a polymorph trap in the bottom of the gnome mines and turned into a fire salamander, she then proceeded to kill everything in sight. I sacrificed the Neutral priest in the gnome mines to my god Atrioch, she killed Kops, she killed shopkeepers, I had to start leaving her behind to gain experience, but then fear she'll turn against me. It was fun for a while, then it got boring when your pet just tears through everything before you even get the chance. It became more "open door, send in 'cat', reap rewards.".
Like others, I only saved the last stopping point in case i did something stupid, thought a fire salamander pet was sweet, saved it.... bad idea. Also played enough Quake III to be accused of cheating (I'm running Linux, never found any hacks or anything), but I just played a lot of insta-gib on fast ping machines. Sometimes you can tell, sometimes you can't. I would cheat single player, I also don't have that much time any more. Wouldn't cheat multiplayer. I think I'm off to play Mario Kart now, I drive like a bat out of hell.
posted by zengargoyle at 4:06 AM on April 11, 2009
Like others, I only saved the last stopping point in case i did something stupid, thought a fire salamander pet was sweet, saved it.... bad idea. Also played enough Quake III to be accused of cheating (I'm running Linux, never found any hacks or anything), but I just played a lot of insta-gib on fast ping machines. Sometimes you can tell, sometimes you can't. I would cheat single player, I also don't have that much time any more. Wouldn't cheat multiplayer. I think I'm off to play Mario Kart now, I drive like a bat out of hell.
posted by zengargoyle at 4:06 AM on April 11, 2009
I nth not giving a damn about single-player cheating.
When I'm playing Halo 3, however, I just want to go through the TV and strangle the modders.
posted by C17H19NO3 at 5:52 AM on April 11, 2009
When I'm playing Halo 3, however, I just want to go through the TV and strangle the modders.
posted by C17H19NO3 at 5:52 AM on April 11, 2009
> I admit to savescumming on nethack, but I'm a real newbie. I wish I had done it more... my cat hit a polymorph trap in the bottom of the gnome mines and turned into a fire salamander, she then proceeded to kill everything in sight. I sacrificed the Neutral priest in the gnome mines to my god Atrioch, she killed Kops, she killed shopkeepers, I had to start leaving her behind to gain experience, but then fear she'll turn against me.
ENGLISH, MOTHERF****R! DO YOU SPEAK IT?
/ just kidding
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:31 AM on April 11, 2009 [1 favorite]
ENGLISH, MOTHERF****R! DO YOU SPEAK IT?
/ just kidding
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:31 AM on April 11, 2009 [1 favorite]
not cheating in a video game is like using only the first and second gear in a new car until you have accumulated 50,000 miles because that's what some idiot engineer wrote into the manual.
discuss.
posted by krautland at 9:17 AM on April 11, 2009 [1 favorite]
discuss.
posted by krautland at 9:17 AM on April 11, 2009 [1 favorite]
It's all about fun. I funded a massive trading operation that allowed me to explore the New World and travel after Magellan in Uncharted Waters:New Horizons by cheating at Blackjack for a million golden bars. I changed the scope of Myth II by multiplying both mine and the enemy forces and still had fun getting shred to pieces in the original.
Sometimes the fun lies in making that series of jumps, in grinding or searching for the magic thingamabob. Sometimes the game itself is so balanced it solves that problem entirely: I once started a Warcraft 2 campaign fully intending to cheat only to find out a few hours later I hadn't because the difficulty curve was just right.
Sometimes I want to get the weapon that corresponds to the "9" button and wreak havoc. Sometimes I want to see a game's story without having to deal with the artificial limits it places. Sometimes I want to painstakingly level up all 150 provinces, having "beat" the game long ago. Sometimes I want to replay till I finish the stage without getting hit once.
Cheating at multiplayer games without permission by the rest of the players is no go, but on solo different ends call for different means.
posted by ersatz at 9:41 AM on April 11, 2009
Sometimes the fun lies in making that series of jumps, in grinding or searching for the magic thingamabob. Sometimes the game itself is so balanced it solves that problem entirely: I once started a Warcraft 2 campaign fully intending to cheat only to find out a few hours later I hadn't because the difficulty curve was just right.
Sometimes I want to get the weapon that corresponds to the "9" button and wreak havoc. Sometimes I want to see a game's story without having to deal with the artificial limits it places. Sometimes I want to painstakingly level up all 150 provinces, having "beat" the game long ago. Sometimes I want to replay till I finish the stage without getting hit once.
Cheating at multiplayer games without permission by the rest of the players is no go, but on solo different ends call for different means.
posted by ersatz at 9:41 AM on April 11, 2009
A little more on Nethack:
idiopath: what lost my last game and delayed my current one was impatience, not lack of knowledge of the game
Impatience is just another kind of inexperience.
And to all Nethack players: "scumming" is an Angband word. "Stair scumming" is the act of re-entering a level repeatedly in order to generate more/better items. The word refers to generating a lot of random things so one can harvest the best, the things that float to the top, so to speak. Hence the word, scumming.
"Save scumming" literally, would be the act of saving and reloading in order to get more advantages this time out. There are probably games (mostly on consoles) where such a strategy could be useful, at least if you're playing tool-assist. But it's probably not the right word for restoring from backup saves to avoid death in Nethack.
(Yeah, I die a little inside when someone misuses "beg the question," too.)
Now, on cheating in general:
I'm of three minds. Cheating in a multiplayer game, in which not all the participants are aware of the cheating or don't wish to deal with it, is nearly entirely detrimental to the play. Cheating in single-player games, however, reveals a subtle change to the way in which we play games from the old days.
The question to ask about playing a game is, really, why? Why are you playing it? Are you playing to see the cutscenes, story and ending, or are you enjoying the trip?
If I encounter a part of a game that's too difficult to pass, well... generally, these days I don't enjoy the story (which is frequently insipid) as much as the game itself, and if that part is too difficult I usually throw the game down rather than cheat at it.
posted by JHarris at 11:14 AM on April 11, 2009
idiopath: what lost my last game and delayed my current one was impatience, not lack of knowledge of the game
Impatience is just another kind of inexperience.
And to all Nethack players: "scumming" is an Angband word. "Stair scumming" is the act of re-entering a level repeatedly in order to generate more/better items. The word refers to generating a lot of random things so one can harvest the best, the things that float to the top, so to speak. Hence the word, scumming.
"Save scumming" literally, would be the act of saving and reloading in order to get more advantages this time out. There are probably games (mostly on consoles) where such a strategy could be useful, at least if you're playing tool-assist. But it's probably not the right word for restoring from backup saves to avoid death in Nethack.
(Yeah, I die a little inside when someone misuses "beg the question," too.)
Now, on cheating in general:
I'm of three minds. Cheating in a multiplayer game, in which not all the participants are aware of the cheating or don't wish to deal with it, is nearly entirely detrimental to the play. Cheating in single-player games, however, reveals a subtle change to the way in which we play games from the old days.
The question to ask about playing a game is, really, why? Why are you playing it? Are you playing to see the cutscenes, story and ending, or are you enjoying the trip?
If I encounter a part of a game that's too difficult to pass, well... generally, these days I don't enjoy the story (which is frequently insipid) as much as the game itself, and if that part is too difficult I usually throw the game down rather than cheat at it.
posted by JHarris at 11:14 AM on April 11, 2009
(Hmm... when I said "I'm of three minds," I then immediately switched my point and forgot to delete that part. Sigh.)
posted by JHarris at 11:22 AM on April 11, 2009
posted by JHarris at 11:22 AM on April 11, 2009
I'll sometimes cheat on some fps games where it's single player, because there's always a few places in a scenario where it's ridiculously hard and not all that fun, but I mostly prefer strategy games, and cheating in those games is sort of missing the point. If the AI is too difficult, I can just turn down the difficulty.
posted by krinklyfig at 5:42 PM on April 11, 2009
posted by krinklyfig at 5:42 PM on April 11, 2009
I don't really play games any more, but in the days when I did, I used to cheat because the designers were incompetent. I'd only ever do it when they failed to get an optimum balance between effort expended and progress through the game.
Whenever you reach the point that learning how to do the move/solve the puzzle/kill the drone/whatever gets boring, then the designer has made the game too hard/too boring. The best games never suffered from this -- or they'd provide alternative methods of progression. Examples would be Nintendo's classic Mario's/Zeldas, ID's shoot-em-ups, the old Bungie Marathon games on the Mac, etc.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:28 AM on April 12, 2009
Whenever you reach the point that learning how to do the move/solve the puzzle/kill the drone/whatever gets boring, then the designer has made the game too hard/too boring. The best games never suffered from this -- or they'd provide alternative methods of progression. Examples would be Nintendo's classic Mario's/Zeldas, ID's shoot-em-ups, the old Bungie Marathon games on the Mac, etc.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:28 AM on April 12, 2009
Cheats are often debug features that were left in the game.
The reason that they are classified as cheats (these days anyway, I can't speak for the NES era) is that they usually have a high probability of breaking the game in one way or another.
If we think they're so compelling they should stay in, we don't inform the user directly of the method for activating it, so that we neither have to spend precious time testing it, or supporting it officially when you turn off clipping and get stuck in a tree.
posted by Durhey at 6:56 PM on April 12, 2009
The reason that they are classified as cheats (these days anyway, I can't speak for the NES era) is that they usually have a high probability of breaking the game in one way or another.
If we think they're so compelling they should stay in, we don't inform the user directly of the method for activating it, so that we neither have to spend precious time testing it, or supporting it officially when you turn off clipping and get stuck in a tree.
posted by Durhey at 6:56 PM on April 12, 2009
Why do we cheat? IDKfa.
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:20 PM on April 13, 2009
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:20 PM on April 13, 2009
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posted by idiopath at 4:26 PM on April 10, 2009