From Galloway, “Gamic Action and Four Moments” Mods and Macros

One topic discussed in Gaming was cheating.  Galloway said “many games have cheats built into them for debugging purposes.  A cheat act is executed from outside the world of the game by the operator, which effects how the game is played in some way.”  Galloway acknowledges that the gaming community hates outright cheats, such as the ability to get infinite health, but encourages add-ons and macros.  Is the use of macros and mods considered cheating?  I disagree with his opinion on macros for the reason that they can create virtual economies and effect in-game economies.  Macros are unfair as they allow a player to quickly level up a skill while collecting a vast amount of resources from that skill and turn those resources into a highly sought after product.  The macro can then dump all of his or her products onto the in-game economy and collect a large amount of in-game money.  However, this will drive down the price of that product, as there will be a larger supply than demand.  Some players will then sell their in game money for real money, which can combine the in-game economy with a virtual economy.  I consider macros cheating as they crash in-game economies and give one player great level advantages over others.  However, I agree with Galloway’s opinion on add-ons, or mods.  Mods allow the player to add something to the game that was not there before.  Famous examples can be found in Minecraft.  Minecraft is a game in which the player collects resources to “craft” into various items to make large creations, which are architectural or redstone powered.  You may also turn up the difficulty to kill creatures.  Some mods do change the gameplay, such as a grapping hook or creeper-pigs.  There are also mods that change the ascetics of the game.  One of the most well know mods is reflective water.  I consider mods fair as they add on to the game and the files for the mods are shared online, which gives everyone the same advantage, unlike macros, which just profit one player.

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