this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
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Explain Like I'm Five
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Oooh! I was just talking about this with my wife, who I met gaming online. We've had the conversation with each other, and other people a lot, including cheaters.
So, most of the cheaters I've known tend to look at it as entertainment rather than competing. It isn't that they want to beat other people, and think cheats are an acceptable way to do that. It's usually that, regardless of their skill, they get bored with the slower pace of play, but still want to play.
I'm not saying it makes sense, or is acceptable, but that's the most common explanation I've heard.
The next most common is the jerks. They do it either to mess with people, or to "troll" people that the cheaters think are too serious, or too invested or too "tryhard", or whatever the excuse is. That kind of cheater does indeed wnat to ruin things for other people.
The next one that I've run into enough is the nerds that are just looking for ways to cheat as a hobby. They're the ones that end up developing cheat tools, whether or not they let others use them. It's about figuring out the game, its code, and how to manipulate it. Those players tend to stop using cheats once they've done what they wanted.
The other significant grouping I've run into are the ones that only cheat on PTW games, where they'll say that if you can pay your way to winning, the game is already a cheat. I actually agree with them, but I just refuse to play those games, even if they're otherwise very good. In theory, I would maybe cheat in those games if I knew for a fact everyone playing was cheating too.
I've actually done that once, but on a private server where nobody could play without an invite. It was actually kinda fun running an over powered character by virtue of a ton of free "pots" that would buff you in both pvp and pve play. Everyone was juiced up and one-hitting each other. Wouldn't be fun all the time, but the free pots were only on weekends, and outright unavailable any other time.
And, I will sometimes run cheats in single player games for the same reason; it gives a different play experience that's fun as long as you can turn it on and off.
But you'd be surprised how many people in all of those groupings will cheat if they think there's other cheaters, no matter if there's proof or not.
I used to love in-game cheats as a kid. The 'motherlode' cheat on the Sims & the button combinations in GTA were great. Being able to summon a tank and roll over everything on-demand was awesome. I liked how those games embraced it and made things a whole lot more fun.
In a single player game no one should give a shit. Give yourself a million dollars. Mod in a gun that does 50,000 damage. A car that does 350mph.
It's pvp where people notice/care you're cheating
Yeah, I'm reminiscing because I was reminded of that particularly fun period in my life. Nothing to do with the main topic.
Have you tried gtao with mods/cheats? Its the only game that I happily "cheat in" because when I play, I just want to have fun with the new things. Also keeps you safe from other modders, and I've made quite a few friends just being able to enjoy the game and not grind.
I haven't played GTAO, but maybe I'll check it out. Thanks for the tip.
I'm also nostalgic for the era where cheats were easter eggs that enhanced the single-player experience.
Like, as a kid I was interested in Warcraft/Starcraft, but I'm horrible at RTS gameplay. Cheats gave me an out so that I could enjoy the story.
Historically, cheats were essentially debug tools that the developer could use to, say, thoroughly play through a level with unlimited lives. But around the 90s/00s you started to see this shift away from using a complicated code of buttons to activate (Konami Code, IDDQD) to a simple to remember phrase ("PowerOverwhelming,""GiveUsATank," "GunsGunsGuns").
That shift makes me think that the cheats were for the players to enjoy. Otherwise they wouldn't have fun names to activate them.
I used to cheat in Need for Speed World. Almost everything worth getting was locked behind an extremely steep paywall ($15 for a car kinda paywall). I don't know why I played that game, but I loved it. I didn't cheat to win though. See, need for speed world was very poorly programmed. Badly enough that you couldn't tell when people were cheating because they would lag-port around due to shitty netcode and/or shitty servers (knowing the devs, probably both). There was a lot of car customization in the game, which is where my cheating came in. A number of body kits for the cars were normally sold in packs with a fancy spoiler for premium currency. However, iirc the kits themselves (minus the spoiler) were hidden but available for purchase with in-game cash if you knew the right memory values to edit/freeze (tricking the game into letting you buy one of the hidden body kits). As such, you could get most of the premium body kits for free and the devs didn't give a fuck.
Need For Speed World basically had whales, "cheaters" and cheaters.
This answer deserve more than an upvote. Have a beer 🍻
Oh, I absolutely cheat in single-player games. If you add hunger to what I consider a nonsurvival game, I'm gonna cheat to get infinite food, or if you add a weight system inventory, I'm gonna give myself more carry weight. ~player.modav carryweight 1000 ~player.setav carryweight 1000
I'm a pack rat, and I refuse to pretend I'm not. If there is something I can pick up or steal I'm going to do it and yes it will sit in my inventory and make it harder for me to find the stuff I need and I still won't get rid of it.
The first two reasons, to me, feel like excuses to hide the true reason(s) they cheat. I'd wager it varies per person but that many just want to be seen as cool or skilled by having everything or beating everyone. It seems equivalent to people who modify cars to be extremely loud; despite many saying the contrary, they've convinced themselves that people love to hear their loud cars go by.
It could also be the anonymous effect of online games. They don't quite perceive themselves as cheating, really, because they don't know the players and will never know them. It likely feels like NPCs in a video game, for the most part. If there were actually social pressure, like would be in a schoolyard game of football, then far fewer would be willing to risk the social ostracization. But because they are anonymous online, they feel safe and empowered to cheat.
Don't forget the streamers that make bank being "good" at a game.