Why do I get punished for using cheat codes?

[LunarSage]

I remember a time many years ago where using cheat codes was not only ok, it was encouraged.  The latest issue of Nintendo Power had a whole section on cheats, god modes and the like.  Then the years went by and we still had Game Shark, which was also awesome.  I could enjoy a video game the way I like; without having to worry about dying constantly and having the frustration of the game's difficulty interfering with my enjoyment of the story... especially if the game has a lot of cool cutscenes.  I would not have enjoyed any of the Silent Hill games, for example if I hadn't had cheats to help me. 

Nowadays though?  Not only is there no more Game Shark (I'd like to know why that is, incidentally), but even if a game has cheats programmed in, you're actually punished for using them.  Case in point: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.  The game itself is pretty difficult (to me at least) and I like to have all the costumes and characters unlocked from the getgo.  I used the cheats to make that stuff happen and when I was done playing, I tried to save.   What did I get told?  "It appears you have used cheat codes.  Saving has thus been disabled".  What the Hell?  This seems to be the norm nowadays.

Yes, I realize that the modern generation of gamers likes to challenge themselves and subject their gaming experience to endless hours of frustration until they become skilled enough to excitedly "beat" the game without cheats, but that's them... that's not where my enjoyment comes from.  I play video games to relax and have fun, not to get even more stressed out.

To top it off, there seems to be this condescending attitude this day and age with regards to my playstyle.  Nearly every time I have chatted with the person at the Gamestop or whatnot about this, I get looked at with a look like "You pussy.  Games are about the challenge.".  (Also note that if your comment is along those same lines, I really would rather not hear it again.  Constructive discourse is more than welcome though.)

So frustrating.  Has the video game culture changed so much as to be nearly unrecognizable in regards to how cheats are looked at?

-An Outdated Gamer

[Callie Del Noire]

Could be worse. I had a rented a game (Superman) to try it out..my room mate at the time used a cheat code.. and I got my acheivements locked and a 0 point acheivment added to my list.. and I can't get any new achievements.

[Aiden]

I don't game much but I have noticed the same thing.

When it came to Warcraft and Starcraft (the older versions) using the cheats gave you the rank "Cheater" at the end and lots of games have also.

I am on the fence with cheats, if I just want to blow through a game really fast I will use them, but some games I do enjoy the challenge. But if a challenge is to hard, I fucking cheat and don't give a rip.

As for snobs at a game stop...well they are working at game stop, fuck them. Lol.  XD

[Callie Del Noire]

I can't say too much.. multiplayer cheats annoy me. I mean look at the CoD crowd..the guys at the top have 200%+ Hit rates. I had one guy literally snipe me THROUGH a building. Not a window.. thorugh an ENTIRE CLOSED BUILDING> Along with the other four guys hiding behind a wall with me.

[Cold Heritage]

Multiplayer cheating is a different kettle of fish than what Lunar's talking about. All of his examples are single player experiences. It's not him using cheat codes or hacks or trainers or anything else to gain an unfair advantage against other players in a competitive environment.

I agree with you Lunar. I think they go overboard. I don't mind if achievements are locked for a playthrough where I used cheats. But not getting to save is just plain stupid. Why did they even bother to put that in there? Playing through Marvel Ultimate Alliance on a new game+ isn't really super rewarding, so, you know, why not let me power through it with cheats since they didn't bother to actually make the branching storyline actually different.

I think probably the worst thing is Saint's Row 3. They've got a DLC pack you can pay real cash money for that just adds cheats to your game. But if you use any cheats, you get your achievements locked and you lose the autosave feature. You can still save, but you can kiss saving in the middle of missions good-bye (not to mention the progress lost in a power outage if you get into playing and forget to save periodically).

And fuck that guy at Gamestop. Games these days are about graphics and the companies shitting over anyone who buys a game used because that's the real reason their sales are down, not that they are charging 70 dollars new for games.

[Callie Del Noire]

Yeah.. I know the single player cheats have been kind of weird.. but I don't know if you should be able to get acheivements using cheats. That said I do think the companies are shitting on the costumer a bit. Like the stuff they did with one version of resident evil for the nintendo handheld. I mean.. 1 save slot? Forever? You can't use it at all. then there is the DLC/Season pass antics they are playing with games now.

I LOVE Arkham city, but I consider it 'crippleware' when you have to buy all the catwoman acts if you get it used. (Don't get me started on the rest of their 'season pass' contents.

[Shjade]

Basically it's an achievement/score-marker thing. If player A gets really good at this game and gets all these achievements to show for it, what does he have to show off if player B can unlock those achievements in five minutes using cheats? Bit unfair. Not exactly new, either; it may be getting "worse," but the concept's existed for some time - as previously noted in the thread, Warcraft gave you the Cheater! title instead of whatever title your end-of-mission score would have normally earned had you not cheated, since, well, you didn't earn it. Didn't affect your gameplay any, though. Not being able to save your progress or similarly crippling anti-cheat features are just lame.

Some articles on the subject you might find of interest:

Where Have All the Cheats Gone
Sometimes, I'm a Cheater

[LunarSage]

Thanks for those links, Shjade. 

These lines right here say it all to me...

"Developers gave up on adding fun cheats to their games, instead focusing on ensuring we play the adventures the way they were "meant" to be played."

"Unfortunately, game philosophy has already shifted."

Sad in my opinion.  So Achievements are to blame.  The thing is, if they were to release a cheat code program like Game Shark that completely disabled Achievements but allowed cheats to work normally, I would have zero problem with it.  I honestly don't care about Achievements.  I may be biased, but I think they're a lame idea to begin with.  All kids nowadays seem to care about is their Achievement score.

"My gamer score is 255,000!"

"Puh.  Mine's 512,000!  Pussy."

It's a new age and sadly, the industry no longer seems to want to cater to a gamer like myself.  Not when kids whose parents buy them a new $70 game every other weekend are their biggest customers.  I can't compete with that.   :-(

[Inkidu]

Thanks for those links, Shjade. 

These lines right here say it all to me...

"Developers gave up on adding fun cheats to their games, instead focusing on ensuring we play the adventures the way they were "meant" to be played."

"Unfortunately, game philosophy has already shifted."

Sad in my opinion.  So Achievements are to blame.  The thing is, if they were to release a cheat code program like Game Shark that completely disabled Achievements but allowed cheats to work normally, I would have zero problem with it.  I honestly don't care about Achievements.  I may be biased, but I think they're a lame idea to begin with.  All kids nowadays seem to care about is their Achievement score.

"My gamer score is 255,000!"

"Puh.  Mine's 512,000!  Pussy."

It's a new age and sadly, the industry no longer seems to want to cater to a gamer like myself.  Not when kids whose parents buy them a new $70 game every other weekend are their biggest customers.  I can't compete with that.   :-(

Actually... no, achievements aren't entirely to blame. It has to do more with modern game design than anything. When's the last time you went ten minutes without a checkpoint or autosave? When's the last time you needed lives? When was the last time you  couldn't jack down the difficulty of a game to the level of "If you die on this, quit playing game entirely" I'm not being condescending. It's just modern trend that big-head modes and the like are out of business, but from what you've written you like the power-cheating and not the fun cheating, even if it's just to get through the game. I get that you want to go through the game and all, but even without achievements to mark the progress if you told someone who did something without cheats that you did it with cheats you could be robbing them of their own satisfaction. It obvious irks you on the flip-side

Plus it is cheating, and given a choice between allowing people to cheat or enforcing the moral normative they're going to come down on the moral normative. :\

[Analee]

I guess my simple answer is becasue they are *cheat* codes, stands to reason if they find out you use them then they can call you a cheat, and use any rules they have agreed on for cheating.

BUT like you say attitudes have definately changed, and your now pointed out and pick on for using those kinda cheat ways.  Recently though Jagex won court case against bot companies for using codes to cheat members from being online and active.  the use of bot codes got so bad it was affecting the fun of active members.

Long time ago I played Age of Empire for a long while without any cheat codes then found out there were loads of them for the game and I used them, and quickly realised there was very little chance of me ever getting the fun out of the game, if i had still being playing the non cheat code way.

So I guess its depends on the game and the *cheating* of the the moment, which can be very annoying.

Thats my pennies worth :D

[Cold Heritage]

I'm not being condescending.

No, you are.

[Shjade]

He is, but he's being condescending toward game design, not players.

Sidenote: Demons' Souls and Dark Souls probably both fit your criteria, Inkidu. Not sure about many others; I don't game as widely as I once did.

[DudelRok]

I tend to cheat when a game annoys me or bores me. Though "cheating" is a big word. I prefer to say that I'm altering my single player experience to gain more enjoyment out of the product. It's the same reason people mod games, they like their game... but they don't like certain aspects of it so are gonna go around this.

Multiplayer is, indeed, not the same. That's a manner of playing fair and good ethics. Single player is just you vs the computer, and sometimes the computer cheats first.


Personally, I have an issue with a lot of current gen trends. Flagging people who alter their single player experience is encouraged when it's directly modding the game (which is technically against the law and, depending on the game and it's developer, can lead to trouble) but people who use in game provided cheats get flagged. There is an influx of games that are discouraging the sale/trade of used games. There is an influx of "online or nothing" kind of game content (or the ability to play the game, period) which stops folks who may not get online.

The current trends in gaming, period, especially on the business side of things, really reads like the music and other industries. It's clearly about doing everything they can to control the way you use your purchased content and then shame you publicly for doing it anything other than their way.



Gameshark, and the like, don't exist because they directly alter and mess with game code. Or, at least, that'd be my main guess. That and newer systems have fail-safes that prevent that kind of thing. A lot of times you need to crack your system and a commercial product that encourages people to jail break their system ain't gonna go over well with everyone else. (Especially with this influx of attempted anti-piracy.) I'd say it's more to do with difficulty to make those things work and the online integration than anything else. The only recent Game Shark devices I could even find were for the DS Lite and everything below that.

However you can still get Action Replay, and the like, to allow you to get game saves. Rather than cheat all the costumes, you can nick a full save of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 which would have everything unlocked already. Then you can play normally.

Plus it is cheating, and given a choice between allowing people to cheat or enforcing the moral normative they're going to come down on the moral normative. :\

Ha!

Moral normative.

That's always good. Rich, even! Lets force our views of ethics and morals on others... especially when they don't actually apply to real life.

Little FYI, cheating is actually encouraged in reality. In fact, cheaters typically win because they are willing to do anything to win.

[Shjade]

It might be more accurate to say "Cheating is discouraged (but rewarded) in reality." ;p

[DudelRok]

It might be more accurate to say "Cheating is discouraged (but rewarded) in reality." ;p

Discouraged by word, but encouraged by action.

Action having the larger value.


But this is WAY off topic. XD

[Anjasa]

I feel your pain. I mean, I played Duke Nukem 3D so much only because of cheat codes. Same with Doom. That's how I had fun with the game. It wasn't a competition or anything, I just wanted to kick back and play a game without worrying about dying.

Now there's so much competition - even in single player games. Just tell someone what difficulty level you play Skyrim on and you'll be opening up a can of epeen. Everyone ALWAYS plays on Master and STILL finds it too easy. Tell someone you enacted godmode? You might as well admit to being the worst person in the world. You suck at games, you suck at life, and you might as well stop trying.

Honestly, I still play games to have fun so I don't really compare myself to others like that.

[DudelRok]

People playing Skyrim for the difficulty level, or challenge, are missing the point of Skyrim. :(

[Inkidu]

Moral normative.

That's always good. Rich, even! Lets force our views of ethics and morals on others... especially when they don't actually apply to real life.

Little FYI, cheating is actually encouraged in reality. In fact, cheaters typically win because they are willing to do anything to win.

Don't let your cynicism make you a nasty person. :] Life's too short.

People playing Skyrim for the difficulty level, or challenge, are missing the point of Skyrim. :(

The irony in this statement made me laugh, by the way. Thanks for that, sincerely.

Shjade: I think Dark Souls does fit my criteria for that, but it doesn't have cheats. I know, I looked. Besides an item dupe (unless you wanted to make infinite rings of sacrifice) is the only one I found.

More on topic. Cheat codes just aren't in. It's just market philosophy, but Nintendo is doing its easy mode and tutorial thing where it helps you get through the game. So maybe more people will catch onto the idea. I just think that modern game design doesn't lend itself well to the classic cheat code.

[Frank Reshman]

The reason video games had cheat codes and were encouraged back in the day, is because video games then were difficult.  Today's games are nothing.  With a few exceptions, of course.

[Shjade]

The reason video games had cheat codes and were encouraged back in the day, is because video games then were difficult.  Today's games are nothing.  With a few exceptions, of course.

I've watched a speedrun of Zelda 2 that acquires minimal magic, tools and hearts to complete the game with zero deaths that didn't involve any cheats. I've seen a run of Contra 3 that took less than 15 minutes (I think it was around 11, but can't recall) without using the Contra Code. Hell, I've seen runs of Battletoads that were practically painless.

Most games weren't "difficult" then. Players just weren't as good at playing them yet, and they were more punishing of mistakes than modern games. Providing a better introduction for less experienced gamers in the modern generation of games isn't why cheats have become less popular.

[CmdrRenegade]

A large number of these games also lacked save features of any kind.  If you didn't want to start again, it was necessary to leave the console on. 

Funnily enough I had a conversation with a Gamestop manager about Mass Effect.  She said she won't play the games because she's no good at shooters.  I told her "just set it to 'casual and learn from it'".  She said "I can't set it to easy! I'm a Gamestop's manager!" I guess that's a pride thing. 

[LunarSage]

I just hate the first person perspective of shooters, myself.

[Caeli]

I actually enjoy playing a game on easy the first time around so I can fully enjoy the nuances of the story and pick characters/weapons/promotions that I want to use, rather than trying to get a straightforwardly powerful team (I'm referring mostly to Fire Emblem titles, since those are what I've been playing recent years, but it can generally apply to others as well). I'll often do second and third run-throughs on regular and then hard mode to challenge myself.

I don't have many thoughts on the use of cheat codes myself, but reading through this thread and hearing some of the examples, I think that the gaming industry punishes those who want to use cheat codes (for whatever reason) much too hard. I mean, not being able to save your game because you used a cheat code? :-/ What kind of reasoning is that? (Multiplayer games are a different story, of course.)

Now, I can understand not allowing certain achievements for using a cheat code. But if I'm just a casual gamer wanting to up my enjoyment by not having to worry or get frustrated over something that's trivial (example: Skyrim lock-picking mod), does it truly matter whether I use a cheat code to finish the game?

I haven't run into the problems much myself, since I've fallen off the gaming radar in recent years, but I can definitely understand where your frustration is coming from, Lunar.

[SinXAzgard21]

Most games don't have cheats anymore, they have exploits that can be used  to an extreme.  Some of the exploits are completely obvious when playing.

Boarderlands and Skyrim examples.

Take boarderlands' item chests.  You can raid the hell out of them with just leaving game and re-entering it.  In Skyrim you can attack the guy during the tutorial dungeon to level up magic, sneak and what ever weapon type you wanna use.

I'm not against cheat codes, personally I don't care if you use them or not.  I like the achievements that games now have, makes them a little more fun for me at least.

[Shjade]

Of course in Skyrim you can just use the console commands to do what you want.