Cheating - in Video Games

In Video Games

In video games, cheating can take the form of secret access codes in single-player games (such as the Konami code) which unlock a bonus for the player when entered, and add-ons or exploits which give players an unfair advantage in online multiplayer games.

Attitudes towards cheating vary. On one hand, cheating allows casual players to complete games at much-accelerated speed, and this is especially helpful nowadays as typical Role Playing Games (RPGs) can take well over ten hours to finish. For single-player games, this is largely a matter of taste. On the other hand, as internet-based multi-player games, such as MMORPGs are becoming more and more popular, cheating in those types of games is often prohibited. In many circles, the purchasing of items or currency from sources outside the game is also considered to be cheating. The Terms of Service from many games where this is possible, directly prohibits this activity. An example would be, in the Pokémon franchise the player can hack for items and Pokémon unavailable at that time or in that game, and they can hack for experience gain to level their party to become incredibly powerful early.

In First Person Shooter (FPS) games, players can use multihacks containing different kind of cheats. These include: Aimbot (automatically aims at targets), Wallhack (allows the cheater to see targets through walls), and ESP (displays information about the targets).

Another form of video game cheating is when a player does things unforeseen by the programmers to permit changes to the way enemies are encountered (or objectives met). This could be through means of a "Hack" where altered game files are substituted for the normal files, or image graphics changed to permit greater visibility of the targets, etc.

Another type of cheat would be an exploit cheat where an advantage is gained through an unintended game exploit, such as skipping a weapon reload timer by quickly switching weapons back and forth without actually reloading the weapons. Generally speaking, there is often some concern that this is not truly cheating, as it is the fault of the programmers that such an exploit exists in the first place. However, technically, as with live sports, it is cheating if the player is not playing the game in a formally approved manner, breaking unwritten rules. In some cases, this behavior is directly prohibited by the Terms of Service of the game.