Drawing The Line Between “Assisted Gaming” And Cheating
When a writer for the Washington Post decides to write about video game cheating, then it gets very interesting.
It’s not all that bad, the Post writer surmises in Monday’s issue after looking through all his notes. First of all, in one way or another, we all cheat. Second, in many cases, cheating is built into the game. Third – and this one was interesting – it’s a (mostly) legally-sanctioned multimillion dollar industry. (“(Mostly) legally sanctioned multimillion dollar industry dedicated to cheating?” said this QJ writer while reading the paper with his usual cup of coffee. “I knew I shouldn’t have taken up politics in college!”).
There’s enough evidence in print and on the net to support the third premise. GameSharks, hacks, Tips & Tricks (and the cheat code sections of other game mags), strategy guides (both official and third-party), GameFAQs, even MyCheats.com, the impatient (or unscrupulous) gamer’s version of Wikipedia. Even deleting the cheat codes alone, an industry built on holding your hands through a game makes a statement about cheating.
Cheating is so un-PC. Maybe it should be called “assisted gaming.”
Return to the first premise. That industry’s customers: those who purchase the strategy guides, the gaming mags, visit the websites, even exchange tips and hacks with other players. If there is an industry dedicated to helping players to win at any cost (usually the price of the strategy guide), it’s probably because there are players dedicated to winning a game at any cost.
To reiterate, is that necessarily a bad thing?
Read on at the full article.
When a writer for the Washington Post decides to write about video game cheating, then it gets very interesting.
It’s not all that bad, the Post writer surmises in Monday’s issue after looking through all his notes. First of all, in one way or another, we all cheat. Second, in many cases, cheating is built into the game. Third – and this one was interesting – it’s a (mostly) legally-sanctioned multimillion dollar industry. (“(Mostly) legally sanctioned multimillion dollar industry dedicated to cheating?” said this QJ writer while reading the paper with his usual cup of coffee. “I knew I shouldn’t have taken up politics in college!”).
There’s enough evidence in print and on the net to support the third premise. GameSharks, hacks, Tips & Tricks (and the cheat code sections of other game mags), strategy guides (both official and third-party), GameFAQs, even MyCheats.com, the impatient (or unscrupulous) gamer’s version of Wikipedia. Even deleting the cheat codes alone, an industry built on holding your hands through a game makes a statement about cheating.
Cheating is so un-PC. Maybe it should be called “assisted gaming.”
Return to the first premise. That industry’s customers: those who purchase the strategy guides, the gaming mags, visit the websites, even exchange tips and hacks with other players. If there is an industry dedicated to helping players to win at any cost (usually the price of the strategy guide), it’s probably because there are players dedicated to winning a game at any cost.
To reiterate, is that necessarily a bad thing?
Probably not, in the long view. According to the source article whose link appears below, and the Post last Monday, this is probably because the general nature of games has changed as the hardware became more advanced, the software became more nuanced, and the game developers became more… er, cunning. First, developers started to make their games more complex (even to the point of devious, I think), that in some cases a guide is an indispensable time saver. And time is something people nowadays have little of. The presented example: remember the Celestial Weapons from Final Fantasy X?
The second reason – this one from the Post – is actually related to the first. Early gaming was about survival to the end of the game (Pac-Man, Mario, etc.). Today’s gaming packs more depth of gameplay, story and character, and interaction with the game environment, that cheating – by way of guide or by way of code – is seen more as a way to access and explore all that depth. I count myself as part of that philosophy. Back to Final Fantasy – having something to hold my hand through games of that magnitude means I can access everything the game has to offer (so as long as my trigger finger doesn’t fail me).
Simply put, cheating – okay, “assisted gaming” – makes games even more fun and accessible. I have a friend who regularly GameSharks every new game he gets – like getting the mine thrower immediately in Resident Evil 4. Every new game I got, I’d immediately log onto the Internet to download a gamer-submitted strategy guide.
But there is a catch, people. “Assisted gaming” to explore all a game has to offer (or to complete the thing, just as common) is alright in many people’s books. Cheating to gain dominance in a video game – especially in multiplayer – has always been frowned upon. For the obvious cases – hacking into the code to boost player stats – we don’t need to explain why.
But how about the less obvious cases? The Post article asks, “When roaming the online World of Warcraft, is cheating warranted so long as the only one is you? For example, buying weapons on eBay instead of earning them in the game?” Let’s add our own examples: having the strategy guide on your lap as you play online, or plugging in a GameShark or Action Replay into your game to boost stats for future multiplayer games? How about the Joy Mac, designed to automate the levelling of MMORPG characters? Remember the player who got banned from WoW for using the “wrong” keyboard?
There is a point where cheating finally crosses the line (which, by the definition of cheating, it should). Gamers who have slogged their MMO characters and profiles through hard work will resent a newcomer who “breezes through” through one aid or another. Worse if that newcomer starts singing his own praises about how he “owned” the game faster than the others (or words to that effect). Maybe, as the Post article suggests, we all cheat; maybe, as the source article suggests, we need our gaming hands held every now and then, but there really is a point when cheating can be frowned upon, where asking for too much help is counterproductive at least, infuriating at worst.
The gamer’s relationship with “assistance” is pretty much love-hate. What it should never be, especially in the multiplayer realm, is dependence. We’d love to cheat our way through games just to make the exploration a little bit faster. But gaming, even if it’s “every man to himself” and “all bets are off” (Post), is also competition, especially between players, is also about fair competition, just like any other competitive sport (or at least, as competitive sports should be in the first place). There is still room to honor honest ownage – that is to say, he whose game is never assisted.
But, in the interests of full disclosure, I still download guides to Final Fantasy games.
Via 2old2play.com
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