How Do You Define 'Cheating' In A Video Game?

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Something tells me this person doesn't know what cheating in a video game actually is. I was expecting to hear about wall hacks, aimbots and lag switching but ended up reading about someone changing difficulty levels midway through a single player game. Hell, even when you use cheat codes, god mode, etc. etc. in a single player game, the only person you are "cheating" is yourself.

We don’t always play games the way we’re supposed to. We’ve all pulled out that little trick that helps us get through a tough area, beat a boss, or get a higher score. It might not be turning on God Mode in the developer console or using an aimbot, but it’s not quite on the level either. But it’s fine. It’s not cheating. Right?
 
LOL.....you want to see some real cheating go play a few rounds of Battlefield 1 it's absolutely full of people running game hacks.
 
I have self made rules about cheating in single player games. If I fall in a hole in skyrim yes I can use TCL to get out. Or teleport away from some game breaker. I can make 10000 iron daggers. I can use mods that are lore correct. I can gta some guns when not on a mission.
If I must consult the Internet I will only check the appropriate section. If the solution was something I missed, I cheated that mission. Lowering difficulty is cheating, I never bump it back up. Game guides are fine AFTER a full playthrough.
And not cheating related, movie cuts are unskipable and you must repeat conversations if you die before a save.
What are some others self imposed rules?
 
If it only affects you, it's not cheating. If it's affecting other peoples' gameplay because you have an advantage that wasn't originally in the game content itself (wallhack, aimbot, no-recoil mod, etc.) that is cheating.

If it's a bug that is in the game and the developer doesn't do anything to patch it, that is an exploit.
 
If I'm playing singleplayer, and I get stuck on a boss that requires me to shoot it 65,000 times in a specific pixel sized spot on it's back, yeah I'll usually just use god mode to get through it. Stuff like that is not fun at all and usually ruins the game. I'll also look up online how to solve a puzzle/mission if it's genuinely confusing as to what the developer had in mind. I don't do multiplayer, i'm too old and too slow for that anymore.
 
I dont have a problem with using cheats, guides, walk-throughs or hacks in single-player games, often because I want to finish the story.
Multi-player games are a different matter. If its just me playing its fine but I wont ruin a game when others are affected.
 
Some of the best single player games back in the day were most enjoyable (to me) using cheats. Contra, Doom 1, GTA 3, etc. Now I no longer use any cheats in single player games since I want to experience the game as intended, but back in the day yeah fuck it, god mode baby.

Multiplayer? Totally different story. The obvious stuff is not arguable, wall hacks and so on. Obviously that is all cheating. The more nefarious stuff to me are the exploits because people will justify it as "in the game" so therefore its OK. Reload cancelling, movement mechanics exploits, map exploits, etc. That shit is annoying.
 
Part of my business is designing and running tournaments. A big part of that is protecting the sanctity of fair play. In most cases, we consider a cheat to be when a player performs an action that another player cannot reasonably perform with the developer provided version of the game.

For example, if you can write a script in csgo, chances are it's going to be allowed. This is because we know VALVe constantly refine which things you can do with scripting to ensure scripts don't provide an unfair advantage. Of course we still do our best to independently explore possible beaches to fair play, but we have to be fair to those making scripts for legit reasons too.

Bugs or exploits typically would be considered cheating by us, but even that is a thin line to tread as some consider it subjective at times.
 
If it gives you an unfair advantage in a multiplayer environment it is cheating.

If it gives you an unfair advantage in a single player environment..no one cares and why bother playing at that point?
 
I consider taking advantage of a bug to be a cheat, ie glitching yourself up the side of a wall to get where no one can reasonably reach you to shoot back. or taking advantage of objects that only deflect bullets one direction. That said, devs should get on fixing these faster for multiplayer games imo.

In single player, do whatever you want idc as long as you enjoy it.
 
I play to have fun. In SP, I don't consider anything a cheat as long as you are enjoying yourself. I prefer to do a play through b4 I use any sort of game enhancements, but to each their own.

PvP, or team v team, MP is a different story, exploits and other game enhancements are cheats when you are using them to gain advantage over other players. I consider griefing in MP games to be as bad or worse than actual cheating personally.

COOP MP is a tossup, as long as everyone is cool with using the exploits and game enhancements, and understand the risks of possible vac bans or the like then that is fine too.
 
Anytime somebody is better than me they are cheating. : )
 
You can't really cheat in a SP game. You can only cheat yourself in SP and PVE environments( i've exploited a little in pve destiny only when I felt it wasn't fun to do otherwise.) . In Multi-player cheating is using hacks or exploits to give you an unfair advantage. When you are being beaten by the hack/glitch/exploit instead of the other person. I hate cheaters. I despise them because they have to win at the cost of their own skill.

Kotaku is a cheater of time though. Fuck them.
 
No one is bringing up "creative use of game mechanics"?

How do I know the devs didn't make that wall scalable?

I seem to remember back in the day when I was kid, walking along walls trying to jump any way possible so I could to get over a wall. It was just exploring.....not exploiting.

In WoW, Blizzard would just drop a new boss into the game. They didn't tell us how we were SUPPOSED to defeat the boss. We had to figure out ourselves. It seemed most people figured out the long arduous way no problem. But how do I know Blizzard didn't make it so that dropping an item at a certain place during a certain time in the fight would kill the boss? Maybe the boss WAS suppose to be trivial, but most people made it hard because of the expected mechanics. I don't know.

Bugs and exploits are things that ANYONE who has the game can do or figure out. Writing code/scripts/trainers are not something that anyone can do.

I know most won't agree with me, but games should be explored. If you find something, enjoy it. If it was a bug or exploit then the devs can address it....then....you know it was a bug.

Remember in Mario 3, you could hold down on the white shelf and fall behind the scenery, which then gave you access to the warp whistle. Was that supposed to be for us or not? Who knows. But it was there.
 
AIMMMBOTTER!!! WALLLL HACCCCKKKEERRRR!!!!! Where is the ADMIN??? *pounding on keyboard* HACCCKKKEERRR FAGGGGGGG

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Some thing never truly change!
 
I've been playing MP almost exclusively for the last 20 years and cheats have never been a concern of mine. Mainly a Quake/UT/Starcraft player, though. Small communities built by ridiculously skilled players suffering from delusions of grandeur and bad manners. But hardly any cheaters.

ALl these "perks" and "unlockables" are cheats as far as I am concerned. The CoD and BF series pioneered this bullshit. And the noobs bought into it.
 
I'd define cheating as making use of or taking advantage of a glitch in the code of the game itself whether or not it's well known by others or something that only you're aware of. Years ago when Super Street Fighter II appeared in the arcades there was a glitch discovered (not by me) whereby the character Zangief could do his primary move - the Screwdriver, a jumping-spinning-piledriver - at any time Zangief himself is hit whether or not it's a direct contact blow or blocked. If you did the Screwdriver move at that exact moment with the joystick (a 360 degree rotation) + you pressed all three of the punch buttons (Low-Medium-High) instead of just using one of them it would instantly trigger the move regardless of where the opponent was: on the ground, in the air, next to Zangief, it just didn't matter.

It was a glitch, and not everyone could do it consistently but of course I spent the better part of about $100 in cash learning how to do that move over a weekend at a local arcade and whenever I used that move it made me absolutely unbeatable.

Now, yes it was cheating, I'll grant that, but because it was such a difficult thing to actually do in terms of the timing - it was that precise - I took the vantage point of thinking that because I spent so much time perfecting my use of the glitch that it was not cheating but of course that's a shitty rationalization and it made people hate my guts in the local Street Fighter community whenever I came around. With the first Street Fighter II game people discovered a bunch of glitches with Guile - the handcuffs, the magic throw, etc - and they always seemed to laugh when it was pulled off because a) it was incredibly difficult to time it correctly and b) whenever someone used it everyone would just freak out including the person it was used against.

They never seemed to hate on that aspect of the game in those days - but when I came along with that Zangief 'Super Screw You" move because of that glitch I mean I really got hate layered on me pretty thick and never could figure out why. It happens, of course, but again I take it as a matter of pride that I practiced so hard to make use of that particular glitch, as odd as it sounds. Over time I just stopped using it since I didn't really need it, I could snatch people with that regular Screwdriver move from half a screen away literally and already had enough hate on me for being that good with Zangief. Of course over time Capcom just made him weaker and weaker sadly and I just stopped playing the game entirely when Street Fight 3 came out, was total garbage compared to all the previous versions in terms of the feel of the fights.

But there were some damned fun times in those days. :D
 
I won't forget the times when I worked my ass off to get really good at MOHAA. When I was owning everyone cheat free, this person called me a FAG! When I was 28 @ at time, it was funny as hell. People are funny if you don't take everything too serious!
 
I think you can cheat even in single player games. You can cheat, but if you don't care, it doesn't *matter* that you cheated.

My definition of "cheating" in a single-player context varies depending on the game. In Dark Souls, for example, I will abuse any exploit I can without the slightest bit of guilt, because that game is pretty brutal and generally no-holds-barred in return. OTOH, that I might not consider that to be an elegant way to move forwards, even if I don't consider it to be cheating per se.

In other games, I *usually* view it as cheating if I'm doing things that are obviously not in the way the designers intended me to do it. For example, I played this one game where enemies would get stuck in doorways and I would mercilessly draw them into such doorways and then kill them while they were helpless to stop me (it wasn't a very well-designed game). Do I think I was cheating? Yes, I do. But the game was so bad that I really didn't care: I was more interested in getting to the end of the story and the mechanics were generally crap.

I guess what I'm saying is that you can cheat in single-player games, but often the only person you're really cheating is yourself, especially if you value mastering the game mechanics to be an aspect of "winning" the game.
 
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If it gives you an unfair advantage in a multiplayer environment it is cheating.

If it gives you an unfair advantage in a single player environment..no one cares and why bother playing at that point?
Because it's fun?
 
Cheating is fine if it doesn't affect the enjoyment of others. Who cares if it's limited to a personal experience, just don't be a dick and take it to someone else's gameplay. It's all fine in that situation imho.
 
I cheated in Witcher 3 to give myself far more carry weight. It was stupid having to lug shit back and forth repeatedly to sell it, and even with the horse bags it was still laughably small.

Didn't hurt anyone, didn't really make the game any easier, just saved me a ton of time.
 
It's only cheating if it alters multi-player gameplay or online stats rankings. Cheating in single player games is simply modding as far as I'm concerned. I had to use commands in FO4 and Skyrim to fix bugged quests or get out of random holes in the floor all the time.
 
I'll do things like MavericK - fix things in games that are just there to "take up time", like lugging extra shit around (SP only), or "gimmicks" that are just there to extend the game (any game with a maze it seems, especially in the good old days). I avoid god mode/guides unless it's something that's just brutally stupid or where I'm fighting controls more than myself (Shadow of the Colossus, I'm looking at you here), or I'm starting to lose interest because I've been beating my head against the wall too much.

I will use "easy mode" to have the experience of a game prior to playing a sequel (DMC original before 3/4/etc), and I'll TOTALLY use walkthroughs for JRPGS that have "one shot to find item X then it's gone" (most Final Fantasy games), but not normal RPGs or ones that let you go back to try things again.

I only use walkthroughs for normal games if I've been stuck for several hours (last time was one section of Alien Isolation, I believe - just couldn't figure out where an item was, and SOMA for the damned tracer fluid - missed a drawer).

that being said, sometimes they improve the game - see, original contra, etc. I did finally use the Wuss mod for SOMA with Jin, as by then the monsters were ruining the game a bit instead of letting me finish the story. Didn't really feel cheated there.
 
I cheated in Witcher 3 to give myself far more carry weight. It was stupid having to lug shit back and forth repeatedly to sell it, and even with the horse bags it was still laughably small.

Didn't hurt anyone, didn't really make the game any easier, just saved me a ton of time.
Did the same myself for the FallOut and Elder Scrolls games. All it does is reduce the back and forth grind.
 
Oh come on. Everyone knows what cheating is: Getting an advantage by not following the rules, gaining access to something by having someone else do it for you or by using someone else's knowledge or skill instead of your own. It's why most people play video games instead of, say, chess: They aren't able to think for themselves, they'd rather steal to get ahead. The most common reason I hear from people who cheat? 'It's too hard'.

People cheat because they're lazy. They want to win, but they're not willing to do the work necessary to achieve what they want.

Unfortunately, our society has always gone overboard with this concept in our everyday lives, by forcing people to do meaningless activities in order to qualify for the rewards. It's the puritan ethic gone nuts. So kids now just assume that all working towards goals is meaningless, because the leaders of our society demonstrate that the ends always justifies the means. Look at our 'pillars of the communities': Gates (theft, cheating, market manipulation), Trump (lie about everything, use the bankruptcy courts to rip off creditors), Business tycoons like those in Enron, Adelphia, and all the others who rob from their employees and the public. Accounting firms like Arthur Anderson who enable corporations to doctor their books. They all teach us that it's normal to be dishonest.

Hence, all the cheating. So who really gives a crap? Why play the game at all if you're going to cheat? Just turn off the scoring, because no one's doing the counting anyway, and everyone knows that the top scorers are cheats. Games today are a microcosm of life; it's all about who can be the biggest crook.
 
Some cheating could be ended by some help at the hardware level but a video card with anti-cheat hooks would probably have poor sales.
 
I'll use single-player cheats to "correct" seriously annoying aspects of game play. A good example was already mentioned, the carry-weight limits in Skyrim/Fallout games. It's such an annoyance that it makes the game less fun and therefore I'm less likely to play. A small console edit later, and the game is back to being fun again. It's good to reduce the "grind" in a lot of games. I don't have time to put 60+ hours into a game to get every available piece of gold to buy that one special weapon. Or where you have to run through the whole game 4-5 times to unlock certain items.

It's pointless to do it for achievements, and unethical in any multiplayer games.
 
Oh come on. Everyone knows what cheating is: Getting an advantage by not following the rules, gaining access to something by having someone else do it for you or by using someone else's knowledge or skill instead of your own. It's why most people play video games instead of, say, chess: They aren't able to think for themselves, they'd rather steal to get ahead. The most common reason I hear from people who cheat? 'It's too hard'.

Pretty much this. Lowering difficulty to pass a certain section, or even using an FAQ to me is cheating.

But there are different levels of cheating, just like crimes. Some are like jaywalking. Fairly harmless that everyone does, and I don't really care. Have fun doing whatever in single player games. It's in multiplayer games where I'm more concerned about cheats.
 
Play Hard Reset for PC (the first one) on the hardest difficulty setting and you'll soon switch mid-game to just get past a certain checkpoint. The same goes for COD 2 (I stuck it out in this game be it took a few days more to finish).
 
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