I cheat…or do I? First of all, I want to make a clear distinction between cheating and griefing and hacking.
Disrupting someone else’s gaming experience is mean, and I can’t imagine that it would be considered fun. So, I am not bothered by codes of conduct that encourage players to resist this type of “play” in online gaming communities. I also think that hacking a game and making an avatar’s breasts large or patching a sex scene into a game is a challenge for the people who do it, I’m sure, but that seems like a different animal than what I wish to discuss.
Cheat codes and walkthroughs.
I use walkthroughs. Is that unethical? I love to play games for the narratives, for the stories, for the immersive adventure. This is why sometimes, having to backtrack or spend an entire night trying to solve one particularly bothersome puzzle is not appealing to me. I enjoy the gaming aspect. I do. I like taking aim and firing my pistol in Red Dead. I like battling enemies in Fable 3. I find something therapeutic about dispatching the zombie armies in God of War. I will play a game until the challenge becomes too distracting to my enjoyment. Then, I hit the Internet and find a walkthrough. A group of friends and I actually played through an entire game in a couple of nights using a walkthrough to expedite the experience because we were interested in the psychoanalytical elements embedded in the symbols of the game. We were enjoying the play, but, perhaps, not in a traditional way or in a purist’s sense?
I don’t often use cheat codes, though. I did use them with Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers after I had beaten the game as Aragorn. I enjoyed being in “god mode.” There is something wondrous about invincibility. I will never achieve it as a mortal being. But, in a game, with the right codes, I can withstand fiery arrows, a barrage of bullets, the most vicious sword attack. I used cheat codes with Red Dead Redemption. I wanted to experience being a bad ass cowboy in the West. I didn’t want to die ten times and have to keep restarting and having to travel to the same spot–again–and hear all of the same dialogue–again–and play through all of the same five minutes of gameplay before I finally got to the key action.
So, I entered the necessary Cheat Codes to give me invincibility, infinite ammunition, and countless cool weapons in my arsenal.
If we’re not supposed to cheat, then why do the games invite us to? Does using cheats and walkthroughs make me less of a gamer…or more of a gamer? Why or why not?
