Growing up when I was gaming in the 90s and on, I knew of the stigma of cheating in video games. You were seen as stupid, someone incapable of completing challenges on your own. You were seen as lowly, someone who can never go through life without cheating. Like, it was a pretty big deal as I grew up, hearing all of this for years on end.
I’ve been able to beat games without cheating, of course. But during my late teens and early adulthood, I just tried going past the stigma. Cheating in video games don’t necessarily reflect how you handle life and don’t translate. I’ve found it quite fun to cheat in video games. Probably not in multiplayer and especially on the receiving end.
I even use cheats just to beat games anymore, who the hell cares. People only care if you want to make a big deal about it, by showing it to everyone and boast how you’ve beaten a game in record times. I’ve tried beating some games head on without cheats but there just comes a point where you ask yourself if it is fun dying a hundred times at some part of a game. I don’t think so, personally.
So yeah, I don’t have the stigma anymore. I kinda like how gamers today only care about cheating if it was done in multiplayer or if you’re trying to beat a speedrunning record or some score record. Fun is meant to be how you find it.
People who “cheat” in single player games… I don’t care. You do you.
People who use “hacks” in multiplayer games? Scum of the earth. Don’t deserve internet access.
Single player, if I feel like it, yes. Why the fuck no, its my game, If i feel like cheating makes the game more fun for me why shouldnt I.
Games nowdays have a fuckton of griding and content that is “Collect this” so the cheats help with a lot of that.
The point of games is to have fun, so you should play the game in the way that is most fun for you. Whether that involves cheating or modding the game is up to your own preferences.
Cheating only becomes a problem in competitive contexts because at that point you are being dishonest and ruining the fun for others.
There are some cases where cheating is not okay in singleplayer games and some cases where it is okay in multiplayer games. It all circles back to whether everyone is having a good time.
Its always okay to cheat in single player games
It doesn’t matter if its single player or multiplayer, if you are competing against other people, cheating is not okay.
If you cheat to get a highscore on a leaderboard in a single player game, thats not cool. If you cheat a speedrun in a single player game, you lose all my respect. If you use cheats to beat near impossible challenges in single player games to get clout on social media, that’s despicable.
It’s not always ok to cheat in single player games.
I would say that a game stops being singleplayer as soon as a any form of competition with other players is involved, this would make it asynchronous multiplayer in my eyes.
No matter the definition of singleplayer or multiplayer games, if you cheat and it affects other non-cheating players that did not consent of you cheating, it’s not okay.
Absolutely true!
There are zero victims in cheating in a single player game. No one is deprived of anything. Records are not single player. Competition is never single player.
Bowling or solving a rubix cube is only single player if theres just one player. Two people playing bowling or solving rubix cubes is no longer a single player game. If only one person is bowling or solving rubix cubes, cheat away! Two people in a competition, that’s no longer single player and cheating is obviously not a good thing to do.
You’re kind of twisting the definition of single player. In a colloquial sense, it’s an adjective that describes whether game modes are played alone or concurrently with others. Not literally related to the number of players that have played the game.
The label exists to give people a sense of what the game is like to play. A game can have both single player and multiplayer modes.
Compete in single player games? Are you referencing speedruns?
In single player yes, because I play how I want to play.
In MP with friends, no I don’t.In MP with friends, no I don’t.
Back in my day cheats added so much more variety for local multiplayer games with friends. Some cheats were hilarious, like giving you big head, or add gameplay features. Nowadays off course with strangers on the internet where only one part have them activate is unfair. How times has changed.
I mean some of that stuff would more accurately be called mods rather than cheats.
It used to all be built into the game and unlocked by typing in cheat codes.
Agreed and I also found out cheats back then by just trying combinations, such as in Killer Instinct on SNES.
However there is an exception to this, where Game Genie and Action Replay could be used to cheat in the games. And those could be classified as temporary Modding with outside tools.
I think that wouldn’t be correct. Because modding means an external change that is not part of the game. However cheats are integrated into the game, so you don’t need to mod the game to use integrated options. That’s how I see it. Unless we talk about Action Replay and Game Genie engines.
Yup. A lot of single player games I care about the story more than the gameplay. And sometimes I just want an overpowered curb stomping, so I have no qualms. The game is for my enjoyment.
Cheating destroys the joy I get from games. I used to run cheatengine, but noticed I got bored of the game the instant I ran a cheat. So I stopped. Only time I will create a cheat now is if I get stuck in something time consuming and I don’t really enjoy the game but want to see what’s next.
Never cheated in multiplayer, people who do that should be put to death, fucking assholes.
Oh yes, I did a lot of rosebud cheats in The Sims back in the day. But it’s not like you’re taking anyone else’s money, so who cares? Then, after building homes got boring, I challenged myself to try the game without money cheats and it was like a whole new game.
Right now I’m playing Ori and I wouldn’t even know how to begin to find cheats in that game.
No, I would rather actually play the game then to research how to cheat in them.
If we’re talking single player games I do use cheats on games I want to play but dont want to grind for it. No man’s sky or space engineers for instance. I just wanna build shit man.
When I want to, yes. I play for fun, not for some arbitrary badge of merit that the game authors decided I ought to live up to. Just because the game’s authors had their own ideas about what they think is fair and fun, doesn’t mean that they’re right. It’s my spare time, and I’ll use it the way I want.
Valheim, I’m looking at you.
I only play single player games though. I would never cheat in a multiplayer game. If I felt like I wanted/needed to cheat in a multiplayer game, I wouldn’t play it to begin with.
single player, absolutely. half the fun in the 90s was typing in a code from a magazine just to see what broke
Sometimes. Fun is fun. If it makes you happy and have fun doing it, do it. Who cares what anyone else thinks.
Single player = absolutely
Multiplayer = absolutely not (unless we all unanimously agree to cheat, confirmation is required)
I can’t wait until my group finishes the actual content of Valheim so we can turn on cheats and build giant castles
Valheim rules. I just want to farm all day, I don’t need enemies.
Up down left right a b a b
That’s wild, definitely did not experience that stigma growing up in the 90s. Cheats were just something fun to play around with, like the skins or big head mode that we used to unlock. Of course cheating in multiplayer, especially PvP has and should be considered taboo unless all parties are in agreement, but cheats in single player like a GTA or the Sims are just for fun.
Yeah there were a huge amount of cheat codes and a whole culture around finding and abusing glitches and stuff back in the day. Not sure what OP experienced but it’s not what I remember. If anything I think people are more intense now about ‘playing the game as intended’. Which, personally, I get. I, myself, want to play through the whole game at least once without cheating. But if it’s just to screw around and not to skip something, or if it’s a part I’ve gotten through before but I just want to skip ahead, then yeah I’ll fuck around with some cheats.
“big head mode” reminded me of Turok for N64 disco mode( SNFFRR ) that somehow I still have memorized like the contra +30 lives on NES.
To be fair offline gaming was dominant up until the late 2000s/Early 2010s in my experience, so modern perceptions of cheating are mainly online-centric.
(There’s also cheating in the sense of like faking speedruns or trying to enter things like pokemon tournaments with juiced stat pokemon)
If the game is a grindfest and I dont have the time, I will do whatever it takes to just see the ending.
It is meant to be fun after all.
I cheat on a lot of single player games and I’m happy to tell anyone. It makes gaming sooo much better. It’s one of the main reasons I favor pc gaming and have moved away from console. Cheating in competitive multi is nasty and I would never do that but for single-player it helps me reclaim time and avoid frustration. Grinding is a thing of the past - good riddance. I used to love it as a kid and I cannot stomach it now. Heavy punishments for failure is some sort of trend now and I don’t understand it and don’t want any part of it. I don’t want to replay 10 minutes to get back to where I was because it decided to send me back to the beginning of a level or a boss has 4 phases and I’m just stuck on the last one. I skip a lot of platforming in my action / adventure games - jumping around to climb a building is not why I’m playing. Rng for rewards - skip that too. Grinding and save scumming and guides were all strategies to work around annoyances but cheating is much faster and easier. I don’t make the game trivial I just make it so that I’m enjoying the fun parts and avoiding the tedious parts that I no longer have the time and patience for.
