Cheating: does it matter? When? Why?

[flailthroughs]

Based on a rather loud conversation I had with a friend of my brother's last night. His position: "Beating" a game means surmounting its challenge, and if you cheat you can't say you've beaten the game. My position: So?

The worst part is that I do not really cheat very often- I prefer to play the game as it was intended and try to meet the challenge. But it's my time to waste, and I've got plenty of real-life challenges to stare down, so if not cheating means not enjoying and ultimately dropping a game I paid good money for, I'm gonna bloody well cheat.

Really, if you're not playing against anyone, and you're not playing online or trying to beat a record, who does it hurt? You can argue that you're not meeting the game's challenge, or that you're not playing the game as the creators intended. But if nobody is hurt and nobody's time but mine is wasted, why should anybody else be able to impose limits on my recreation?

[NintendoLegend]

... this is such an intriguing topic. I will really, genuinely have to give more thought to this and return. For example, for my recent Alien 3 review, during gameplay I definitely used the level-skip code. Does that reduce the legitimacy of my review? That is just the tip of the iceberg for cheating and its implications on gaming philosophy. Hm.

[flailthroughs]

Here's more fuel for the fire: what's the difference between cheating in a video game and, say, playing Monopoly using house rules? Is one ruleset more inviolate than the other? Why? As long as everyone playing agrees, has any harm been done?

And since you brought it up: my brother, his girlfriend and I never use external cheat devices when we play games for our site, and we try not to even look at walkthroughs if we can help it, as we felt that doing so would be in violation of the intent of the project: to be as clueless as possible and amuse ourselves and others by making horrible mistakes.

As far as using a level skip code for Alien 3, I sure don't blame you- it's a really tough game! And it's clear you played through the entire game even if you did use the code to get back to where you left off (I seem to recall limited continues, if any?). So for what it's worth, I definitely don't see anything wrong with it.

[theichibun]

Level skipping codes are the most justifiable method of cheating. I used to use the one in Sonic the Hedgehog all the time to pick up where I left off. And I was always worse off for it because I wouldn't have all the extra lives I built up.