What Type of Game Cheater Are You?
A friend send along a link to a great post on Wired by Clive Thompson discussing what “cheating” really means when playing video games. It highlights the differences between “cheating” when playing alone versus playing online, and particularly interesting to me, it also discusses the different types of cheaters:
A small hardcore group are die-hard purists, like my friend. They don’t use any cheats or guides, because they consider it “cheating yourself” of the subtle pleasure of getting stuck in a game — then suddenly spying the way out.
The next group is the walkthrough folks, like me. We regard guides as a form of travel literature; I’d never have located all the cool, secret areas in Final Fantasy XII without a FAQ. (In contrast, the hardcore crowd seems to relish the idea that they’ll miss out on stuff, because it’s part of the mystery of game.) But I almost never use cheats or manipulations of code to grant myself “unearned” power. I like the idea that if I’m born into this virtual world, I’ll abide by the fictions that govern its reality.
Then there’s the final group of gamers — the “by any means necessary” crowd, as it were. Like the ancient gnostics, or like Morpheus in The Matrix, they know the world around them is just code — and the fun is not in obeying it but mucking with it. Single-player worlds are toys, to be hacked with any available Easter eggs, exploits or hardware mods; you can’t have the truly l33t experiences if you’re not tricked out with sick amounts of weaponry and skillz.
I’m definitely more of a walkthrough guy, with a bit of a purist streak. Meaning I’ll play the game without hints or guides until I get reasonably stuck, but then I’ll look up how to get past the chokepoint and continue on without guides. Don’t have enough time to beat my head on a locked door for hours – and frankly, I play games to be entertained, and not frustrated. 
I also had a slew of people looking for my thoughts on the whole Sony God of War II/goat fiasco. I’m actually not going to comment on it simply because I’m personally highly offended by the whole thing. Anything I might say would end up looking like an anti-Sony rant from a “Microsoft shill” (as some like to believe). Suffice it to say it should have never happened, and that’s the end of it.
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I’m totally on the same page. I will try my best to get through games without guides etc… I certainly don’t use cheats to alter the gameplay in any fashion. If I get stuck somewhere and spend more than an hour or two trying to solve some crazy puzzle, I’ll look to the forums. I’ll read through just enough information to get that "I didn’t try that yet" feeling and continue on. It’s only if I can’t figure it out after that point… then I’ll find a guide online or rummage through a guide in the store.
"I play games to be entertained, and not frustrated"… That’s it. I know once I get to the point of frustration, it’s even harder to pick the game up again. Frustration isn’t fun. I just hope as I get older my tolerance for frustration doesn’t slowly diminish
If I get stuck and start to get frustrated I will go to IGN and look at their guides (if there’s one available for the game) for help.
Now if I’ve finished a game once, and I feel there might be more to it, why shouldn’t I use cheats that make it easier? Heck, it could bring a whole new level of entertainment to the game… For example, playing Half Life 2 again, but with that huge gravity gun thing from the get go.
Using cheats is fine by me, as long as you don’t do it online. After all, if you’re not "allowed" to use them, developers shouldn’t leave them in when they ship a game.
I’m with you Oz. I generally avoid guides/walkthroughs all together unless I get stuck. When I was younger, I used to try and find my way through, but honestly, I don’t have the time to sit and bash my head against a wall for hours when other "grown-up" responsibilities limit the amount of time I get to play. I want to get in, make progress, and get on with my day, and sites like gameFAQS and message board help requests are a necessary evil.
Generally, I don’t actually buy the guides anymore, with a few exceptions where I particularly liked the game (ala Halo), or the guide is of exceptional quality that it stands alone as a good purchase (the leather bound Zelda guide), or adds significantly to the experience of the game. I’m kind of a sucker for "retro" guides also, so I’ve picked up a couple from the 8 & 16 bit days, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually used them for gameplay-aid purposes.
I’m a walkthrough/faq guy. I’m an older gamer so I don’t have the time like I used to. When i was younger it was fun to figure everything out by myself, explore every corner of the game, do stuff maybe the developer didn’t intend or think about being done. Now i’ll take games as far as I can on my own but i’ll bust out a faq, walkthrough or do a community post asking for help now if/when i get stuck. I don’t have the willpower anymore to stick it out on my own.
Also i love collecting achievements and some of them are pretty tough. So if there’s someone with a lot more time than me that’s figured out how to get it or even better, how to get it quickly, i’m all for reading those tips.
I’d have to say that I fall predominantly into that second group. As a day 1 adopter of the 360 (and the Elite, just this weekend), I have always enjoyed the concept of achievements, much like TANK. For me, it allows me to guage my progression according to what a developer considers landmarks in a game.
That being the case, I’ve been involved with several websites (xbox360achievements.org being the foremost) and have dedicated a goodly portion of my free time helping other gamers in the community reach those landmarks. By the same token, I feed off their suggestions and guides and have widened out the scope of games that I play, review, and discuss in various circles.
Great post, Ozy!
—
I read about that whole SCEE Goat debacle and I respect your discretion on the matter.
What I would like to know about is your opinion on the following, if possible:
–> "Retirement" of Ken Kutaragi effective June 19.
–> Thoughts on the 360 Elite version’s launch
–> Ideas about the need of the data transfer cable with the 120GB HDD but not the Elite
–> Another "Why I’m back to playing COD3" post, or whatever your current interest is
Take good care, and keep up the awesome work. Moof!
I am the faq guy now at my age. When I was younger I was much more purist but, right now, I dont have the time to spend hours and hours thinking on what to do next while I prioritize on getting a pleasant game experience and enjoy the overall storyline (well, I like games with coherent storyline even if their supossed gameplay value is considered weak, just like Dreamfall, game I strongly recommend). I have to admit I also erm, trespassed the limtis sometimes… like increasing certain stats on games or so unofficially (ALWAYS on single player games, I had never made such a thing online and I strongly disprect those who do) like altering that few black dragons making them a thousand in Heroes of Might & Magic to defeat that ridiculously big army the CPU had and so on…
I used to be a purist, but now with achievements, I refer to a lot of walkthroughs.
I look at it like this. A game is meant to be immersive, but the creation tends to be imperfect. You’re supposed to play a character that knows about the world you’re living in…but without a walkthrough (or at least an occasional peek) really you’re walking around in the dark.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve played a game, gotten frustrated, looked up some info in a walkthrough and said to myself "I didn’t know you could do that".
Same deal as you. I believe in working my way through things and unless the puzzles are inanely created, I resist using walkthroughs as long as I can.
On the other hand, I do like to check out Easter eggs (I love the amusing ones – like how to Air Guitar in Guitar Hero II), but I refuse to cheat or grief anybody, especially online. My momma taught me how to play nice with other kids, and I firmly believe in good sportsmanship whenever applicable. Especially in FPS like Halo or Gears of War.
Like you, Ozymandias, I’ll try to play the game entirely myself, but when I sense myself getting to the point where I’m going to give up I’ll gander a walkthrough/FAQ for that particular section. Far too often in my past if I got stuck I’d put a game aside for something else, intending of course to return to it later. But inevitably I rarely ever did – which made the fact I completed a PC game of particular relevance to my recommendations. That’s somewhat less of a problem nowadays with Achievements, but still occasionally a problem given the wide range of games available across many, many platforms.
I’m the same as you Ozy, I play as far as I can without aid, but when I get really stuck, I hit gamefaqs. One thing I notice, I’m either getting smarter at spotting the ‘extras’ or they’re getting easier to find (more likely). I lean more towards online gaming anymore, be it MMPORG or Gears, and I have a large amount of hate reserved for the folks glitching those games.
It depends very much on the game. If the game is inherently interesting I play more before looking up hints. If the game replays well, all the better. Eventually, for some games, I do enjoy "modifications" that change the rules of the game, or create a different play experience.
So I start out as the hardcore type, then get help if/when needed to avoid boredom or frustration, more help to play it "to see it all", and then eventually with lots of game mod’s (ie all the loot you can carry at the start of the game) but I have to "win" by some other criteria.
In Civilization (1-3), for example, I played it hardcore with no help. Then I looked up techniques per civ I played. Eventually I modded the cash so I had lots, but to "win" in that scenario I had to have every wonder of the world while the AI was set to hard levels. The money didn’t break the game, since you still have to fight aggressive civ’s and are still capped at technology gain speeds to help you get the wonders. And not all wonders are wonderful
It just changes how you play.
I have nothing against using guides but cheats are only to be used after you finish without them!
"I also had a slew of people looking for my thoughts on the whole Sony God of War II/goat fiasco. I’m actually not going to comment on it simply because I’m personally highly offended by the whole thing. Anything I might say would end up looking like an anti-Sony rant from a "Microsoft shill" (as some like to believe). Suffice it to say it should have never happened, and that’s the end of it."
Remember guys that
a) the PSM article was way overblown
b) this took place in EUROPE. Where sensibilities are different (and IMO more reasonable) than those here in the states.
Therefore none of us really have a right to judge unless we can take these two very important variables into account.
what about the guy that downloads 40,000 points from games they never played off of a website? Those are the worst type. Congrats to Stallion83, the first legit 100,000 gamerscore.
When I cheat:
1. When I am gated by a game’s difficulty or that difficulty make the game not fun for me. GTA: San Andreas flight missions – especially the toy ones. I am so glad that there is another criminal open world game (Saint’s Row) now, because while I love GTA, I can’t STAND missions that require you to get lucky to win.
2. When a cheat is really cool or funny. Big Head cheats don’t really do it for me, but playing an insanely powerful cheater in Gauntlet gave me quite a few laughs.
3. When I’m playing a game with weak sauce combat but a great story. For example, all of those old PC RPGs where you just watch your guys fight and throw occasional heals or use heal items like Baldur’s Gate 2, Fallout, and Planescape – boring to watch that combat and boring to "play" it, but I wanted to get to the rest of the game’s story – which was really fun, so I cheated to get past the boring parts more quickly.
4. When I want to play with something that is cool but that requires way more time or interest to obtain than I am willing to put in. For example, in FF X, you can get some awesome weapons if you are willing to do a ton of mini-games and the hunting mini-game. Well, I want the cool weapons, but the mini-game was just more of the usual fighting that I had done for hours already. I beat the game without cheating before doing this, but it was fun to go back and create insane weapons on my second playthrough.
"b) this took place in EUROPE. Where sensibilities are different (and IMO more reasonable) than those here in the states."
Yep, we in europe decapitate a goat and hide the presents on it on every birthday party. Not. While I do really think you have a point in your statement in the different sensibilities (for which, reading some of the newsflash originating in the states, I am really grateful -no offense intended though-) I also believe the whole incident outside the limits of reasonability. That said, I wouldn’t also make a spectacle out of the incident either. If it serves of something, here in Spain there has been no news about the whole incident at all, while locating the whole story while looking up in british newspapers wasnt easy at all (I am talking about newspaper, not tabloids with flashes like "Slaughter: Horror at Sony’s depraved promotion fest")
I’m an older gamer as well and I see it as cheating however I will consult walthrough guides as needed. My kids dive into cheats as soon as they start the game so go figure.
I am more of a FAQ/Guide guy, but only for certain games. Mainly RPGs that take a good 40-70 hours to go through once. With the amount of time spent on that game (not just game time, ie. 40 hours over several weeks of playing) I am not going to want to go through again anytime soon just because I missed the secret character, item, quest, story, FMV, etc..
If the chances are good that I will only be playing through once I will use it to make sure I don’t miss otu.
Curious as to why anybody would be offended by the Sony ordeal though. Maybe a bit tacky on their part, and kind of disgusting but nothing is a personal attack on anybody that you shoudl find offensive.
I used to cheats on ps2 all the time, but when I got my 360 I gave all that up and really don’t know why I used them in the first place. allthough I used cheats on ps2 I never ever used them online. Now a days I’m with you I’ll use online guide if I’ve been stuck for sometime. I never used a gide step by step before to all the nice thing you can unlock or find.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQSNmpXdIfQ&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=513I87Evjuw&NR=1
just admit the fυcking crappy manufacturing micro "$" oft
The kind of cheater that uses a walkthrough only when stuck. I have to be stuck in a game for a bit then I grab a walkthrough to get pass that part. The fun is in finding things for yourself. shoot I don’t even read the control schemes. More fun for me at least.