Current Events > What is your personal "moral compass" for cheating in video games?

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Personally, I fall under the "single-player only, and with restrictions" category. I won't use any cheats on my first playthrough of a game, because I want the story and experience the developers had in mind when crafting it. After that first playthrough, though, I sometimes like to go back and just break the game and be as comically over-the-top uber-powered as possible.

When it comes to more open-ended games, it's a little more complicated. Something like Minecraft is a perfect example. I'll play mostly vanilla at first to get myself started. But I think of cheats more like "unlocks" in a way. For example, once I've built a mega gold farm playing normally, I will consider gold to have been "unlocked" from then on. Any time I ever need gold, all I would have to do is go stand at that farm AFK for a couple hours. So at that point, it is literally just a matter of saving time, nothing to do with gameplay or skill. So I'll just start to use commands to give myself gold when I need it. And I'll continue exploring and gathering the stuff I need normally to build the next farm, so I can "unlock" another set of resources. Essentially, in something like Minecraft, I will only use cheats to save time, but not to give myself something that I don't already have or would actually require effort or skill to obtain.

Don't even know how to cheat in video games anymore because devs turned them all into microtransactions.

Cheating in single player is fun! But not if you're trying to do it for fame. Then again I did use the Safari Zone trick in Pokemon Red because Tauros was stupid hard to catch.

Jagr_68 posted...

Don't even know how to cheat in video games anymore because devs turned them all into microtransactions.

And you should never do a microtransaction, ever.

I use cheats freely in single player games, but usually not on a first playthrough. And for games where I do use cheats on a first playthrough, it's usually to lessen/remove mechanics I find more annoying than challenging. Like weapons breaking really fucking often.

For multiplayer though, I never cheat, under any circumstances.

Not until I beat the game

I don't play multiplayer games at all. In single player games I'll try to not look up anything on my first play through and try to get as much as I can. After that, I'll look up whatever I'm missing.

Only in single player, after I've already beaten the game.

I'm fine cheating to skip extraordinarily tedious grinding in poorly optimized games. As long as the game is something I want to play, I otherwise won't cheat. If it's something that's enjoyable for the story but otherwise tedious to play, then I don't really care. I'll do what I need to do to finish it.

I don't cheat until I beat the game in single player, or if I've already busted the game in half without cheating.

Don't cheat in multiplayer games, that's profoundly dickish. Unless the point of the game is to cheat, like bluffing or party game kind of things.

Cheating in single player is free game.

Cheating in multiplayer depends on the cheat. As far as Im concerned, if it's possible to achieve a result without cheats, I dont have a problem with it being used. (Ie, genned pokemon still within game-legal parameters)

option 2 is the closest for me. I don't go out of my way to cheat and I don't really play multiplayer. If I do, I won't even try to look for cheats. Even in single player, I only look for cheats when I'm familiar enough with the game to be able to play it normally but end up hitting roadblocks due to glitches and unforeseen issues, or when I am so used to a game that I just don't have the patience to always play the legit way (example: Skyrim, turning on god mode temporarily to negate encumbrance for convenience purposes, or using console commands to fix a perk regret or to fix a follower that is not behaving properly or to compensate myself, such as paying for skill training only for said skill not to level properly in the process). Typically, a game has to have a reputation for being buggy and/or I need to be familiar enough with it to be impatient about things I already know and thus want to take shortcuts in further playthroughs... only then do I think about cheats.

If theres a code to make a harrier fall out of the sky Im gonna use it.

I do it in single player games if it'll make things more fun for me. I usually try not to use them, though.

Single player only unless it's specifically agreed as a cheats match.

Beyond that, I'll usually complete the game without it first, then mess around with cheats for fun.

do loopholes count as cheats or legitimate game mechanics

as far as cheatcodes go though, if i do use them for fun, i don't let them contaminate my save file

Literally can't play multi-player but I'd choose "cheat whenever it's funny".

single player only, but on a "just for fun" save file unless i've beaten the game.

I only use cheats in single player games, and that's just when I'm really bored.

Only in Singleplayer with glitches, cheatcodes, exploits, and mods.

Depends on the context

i wont cheat to make something easier, unless its tedious.

i most recently cheated in trails of cold steel 2. Not to make the game easier, but to gain access to extra scenes I wouldnt have been able to see until my second run

TheMikh posted...

do loopholes count as cheats or legitimate game mechanics

Depends on the "loophole" and its usage, I suppose. Using one to gain something you could earn normally just in a faster time than the devs intended maybe wouldn't count. But using it to give yourself stats that are beyond what should be normally possible (I'm looking at you, Skyrim fortify restoration loop...) would definitely be considered cheating.

Way I see it: Save cheats and mods of any kind til playthrough two with rare exceptions like if the start of the game is just too needlessly hard or quality of life improvements. I think the game I most heavily cheated on was the original Sims and that was just to start out with a nice house for the family I wanted to use in the game.

Never cheat in Multiplayer, even with exploits. It kills the point for yourself and others if you got to cheat to get anywhere in the game. The very very rare exception is if it's an exploit the devs never fixed or punished for and everyone's done it while the game's late into it's cycle. Which best example of that I can think of was Conker's Bad Fur Day's xbox Multiplayer. A bug let you copy the stats of the top players and thus have all the Multiplayer unlocks that otherwise took you forever to grind for and gave you a big disadvantage until you did.

Even then you shouldn't be using cheats that just make you win the fight, like auto aim or out of the map exploits cause come on? What's the point if you turn Multiplayer into Singleplayer for yourself?

I don't play mp. And when I cheat its usually to skip excessive amounts of farming (e.g. Borderlands 2 unique/ legendary guns with particular parts). I'm ok with reasonable farming