Cheating

The video game community does not approve of cheating- in most cases. There are often cheats built into games for developers to go through them more easily to work on them. But is that the only time when cheat codes are okay? We brought up the idea in class that a video game reviewer gets a free pass, as cheats simplify the game they need to finish to write a review. Are there any other situations where cheating is okay? In my opinion, no. But the gaming community allows and even encourages macros and add-ons. I believe that macros are even worse than entering a cheat code to get more health or a giant head. One of the main points against cheating is that it wasn’t in the video game designer’s vision for how one completes the game. But at least with a cheat, you are still experiencing the diegetic part of the game, going to all the areas and performing all of the actions necessary to complete the game. Macro scripts automate player actions to automatically find items or defeat enemies for the player’s advantage. With macros, you don’t even have to play the part of the game that is finding items or fighting bad guys. Not only is it cheating on the same level as entering a code for health, but it takes away from the actual experience of playing. You mess up the artistic vision of the game designer even more because you aren’t even playing half the game! In my opinion macros should be tolerated as much or less than cheat codes in the gaming community.