You Cheated The Game Not Only Yourself

Ever since the first intrepid video game explorer found the famous warp room in the original Super Mario Bros, one topic that has caused no shortage of debate amongst gamers is the merit or lack thereof of cheating. In recent news, this debate came to the forefront somewhat when PC Gamer journalist, James Davenport, outright admitted to using a mod to cheat the final boss of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, the latest action game from FromSoftware, a pedigree that naturally came with the expectation of an incredibly challenging game. In his article, Davenport argues that he lost nothing in terms of gaming experience, and that the final boss was simply the point where what was once challenging and engaging devolved into frustration.

You Cheated Not Only The Game But Yourself
You Cheated Not Only The Game But Yourself Copypasta
You Cheated Not Only The Game But Yourself Mario
Sonic You Cheated Yourself
Xcom You Cheated Not Only The Game But Yourself
You Cheated The Game Not Only Yourself Movie

Nevertheless, this prompted a strong response from Twitter user @Fetusberry, who simply declared that Davenport had “cheated not only the game, but yourself”, and whose brief statement quickly became the latest viral meme template. While @Fetusberry’s response was clearly hyperbolic for the sake of comedy, it does touch on this longstanding debate among gamers, especially when dealing with games of the ‘git gud’ variety like Sekiro, and it is something of an interesting question when you think about it. While obviously cheating in any multiplayer game is at best low and at worst contemptible, the matter gets a little blurrier when applied to any single player game. After all, it’s my game, who cares if I’m playing the ‘right’ way or not?

Cheating Sayings and Quotes. Cheating can quickly turn into a downward spiral. Not only will the guilt eat at you, each lie leads to another and eventually it will become impossible to keep track. Mutual defection is the only strong Nash equilibrium in the game (i.e. The only outcome from which each player could only do worse by unilaterally changing strategy). The dilemma, then, is that mutual cooperation yields a better outcome than mutual defection but is not the rational outcome because the choice to cooperate, from a self-interested.

Of course, you’d need only glance in the direction of practically any discussion of a game more complicated than Tetris to learn that, in fact, people tend to have seemingly very strong opinions about the ‘right’ way you should play a certain game, and are all too happy to lambast you for not playing the way they want you to. Even in a game series as ubiquitous as Pokémon, there are still the elitists, who will insist up and down the only ‘real’ way to enjoy the game is to painstakingly build the perfect competitive team, with perfect natures and IVs and so forth. And indeed, for some people that is a very enjoyable way to play a Pokémon game, but surely, we can at least agree that’s not the only way to enjoy Pokémon?

“Whether cheating ‘ruins’ a game or not is dependent entirely on how much the actual challenge is supposed to be the main draw.”

But then, outright cheating is quite different from playing a game in a ‘sub-optimal’ fashion, not least because, as we see in the case of Sekiro, it essentially lets you skip over the challenge of the game, which can certainly seem like you simply don’t want to have to improve to win. Of course, that raises a question of it’s own, what if you’re not playing the game for a challenge, but for different reasons entirely? As Davenport asserts in his article, while a challenging experience was part of the appeal to him, he got more enjoyment from Sekiro’s storytelling and world building than the difficulty the gameplay presented. Assuming this to be the case, can we really say he cheated himself out of an enjoyable experience if Davenport himself asserts the opposite, that cheating was what allowed him to enjoy it?

But then, how do we deal with the people who cheat in one game, but not another? To put my own cards on the table, I play both Darkest Dungeon and Crusader Kings II, in very different manners. In Darkest Dungeon, I play the game fairly straight, I try to optimise my party members, avoid spoilers, don’t take advantage of exploits and generally try to roll with the punches, even as I lose an entire party for the twelfth time and have to start from scratch again. With Crusader Kings, on the other hand, I cheat relentlessly, whether through save scumming bad events, console commanding cash whenever I run low or sometimes having particularly annoying characters drop dead from spontaneous heart attacks, there is no depth I’ve not plumbed in Crusader Kings in regards to cheating. Yet I would honestly claim that I enjoy both games very much, so what gives? Am I someone who enjoys a challenge or enjoys playing around casually?

The answer, in my case, would be yes. That is to say, I enjoy both a challenge and screwing around. But, perhaps more to the point, I feel these two separate games have different expectations of their players that influenced my own decision whether or not to cheat. Obviously, in the case of Darkest Dungeon, quite similarly to Sekiro, the clear expectation is that the player is playing Darkest Dungeon explicitly for the challenging gameplay, in which every dungeon cleared is an accomplishment, with corresponding costs to the heroes you controlled in said dungeon. Crusader Kings meanwhile, while challenge is a part of the game, the main appeal, as I’ve perceived it, is basically running your own personal medieval soap opera, where a good chunk of the fun is found in just how bizarre and perverse events can spiral while you and other characters run rampant across history (Just skimming the first two pages of it’s reddit page will show you just how far that rabbit hole goes).

Further Reading: A Dance of Death and Victory in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

What this meant for me, I suppose, was that one game was meant to be enjoyed as a challenge, while the other was meant to be enjoyed in other ways, and so I felt more inclined to cheat in the game where challenge wasn’t the primary point. I can’t speak for every cheater, but for me at least, whether cheating ‘ruins’ a game or not is dependent entirely on how much the actual challenge is supposed to be the main draw. With Darkest Dungeon, I would certainly agree that cheating would be screwing myself out of a good experience, just that I wouldn’t feel the same with other games.

To go back to the original dispute mentioned at the start of this article, I would personally take the view that if Davenport really felt that he didn’t lose anything from cheating the final boss, then we can’t really say that he ‘cheated himself’. However, had he been cheating right from the get go in Sekiro, that would have been a different story, and players who were able to play Sekiro without resorting to cheats are within their rights to say that the difficulty is a part of the game. Ultimately though, and I think Davenport and @Fetusberry would agree with this, the discussion of cheating in single player games isn’t something to get hugely worked up about, and really, so long as the player’s having fun, then the game has fulfilled it’s purpose, whether that fun was achieved fairly or not.

Featured Image Credit.

Content warning: Harassment, threats.

I’ve been writing online for many years. My initial focus primarily centred on issues of ethics, since it was what I studied and taught at the time. It gave me an excuse to tackles issues I found interesting, while improving my writing ability. The themes I chose were considered “controversial” outside the semi Ivory Tower I operated in, but they generated discussions with students and peers, resulting in lively conversations and thoughtful take aways. Capital punishment, God, drugs, sex work, torture – these and more were all part of the conversations. I wrote and put my name under many of these and received furious replies — but only infrequently, and, even then, primarily from religious readers who were concerned for my immortal soul.

I then started writing about games and, since having a tiny bit of success from a few articles, I’ve become a central target of forums, reddit threads, and other dark tunnels running through the internet. Even my favourite readers do not care for me as much as online stalkers who, despite being blocked, still keep tabs, run to their creepy friends, to rat on what I said about a video game.

If you’re not digitally stalked, your swarmed, with anime avatars conveying horrific levels of anger and animosity, who require you to be silent and to take the punishment; or who, when you respond, engage in bad faith discussions about their alleged oppression or you faking or you lying or you being sensitive. (I’m a cishet man so I don’t receive anything comparable to those who do not identify as such; the focus, however, does tend to be on my race and threats to my “terrorist” self and family and what have you.)

The lesson I learned is: You are a perfect target because you can never be the perfect victim. Nothing you do or say to those attacking will ever be “good” enough to get them to stop because:

1. They aren’t seeking an answer, they’re seeking a bullseye and bullseyes are meant to be silent and still.

2. Even if they did, each one hates you for different reasons, meaning satisfying one would only anger another.

When I was in the firing line, no matter how many were expressing support, I felt isolated. People, even supporters, were having conversations around you.

You Cheated Not Only The Game But Yourself

This is what I was reminded of recently when this Tweet went viral for how ridiculous it was.

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.

You didn't grow.
You didn't improve.
You took a shortcut and gained nothing.

You experienced a hollow victory.
Nothing was risked and nothing was gained.

It's sad that you don't know the difference. https://t.co/upkhLSNQNO

You Cheated Not Only The Game But Yourself Copypasta

— Fetusberry 「Ass Bastard」 Crunch (@Fetusberry) April 6, 2019

This ridiculous statement and its incredibly serious but equally ridiculous follow-ups, all concern… a video game.

Yet, they also are targeting PC Gamer writer, James Davenport. As evidence, you need only look at the responses to the original PC Gamer Tweet (CW! I do not advise it, for your mental health).

I beat Sekiro's final boss with cheats and I feel fine https://t.co/Fj4i8d6sUbpic.twitter.com/N38RL5zxZO

— PC Gamer (@pcgamer) April 5, 2019

People like the original ridiculous poster whose Tweet went viral are not operating in isolation. If you see an article get that kind of vitriol, you can imagine the kind you don’tCities skylines game cheats. see: emails, DM’s, etc, that the author and colleagues have to deal with it.

Bullseyes must be silent and take it.

But we, who care, shouldn’t let that be the case. There might be an argument to be had that showing how ridiculous this original Tweet was helps to combat the normalisation of it. Yet, that still lends itself to promoting someone’s harassment above their work. This was confirmed by another PC Gamer staffer.

You Cheated Not Only The Game But Yourself Mario

Every round-up that ends with 'teehee, what's it like for this guy to get meme'd on!?' could have instead thought about the author who was actually dealing with the bullshit, instead of meme dude who also tweeted 'They were paid for the review they wrote'

Sonic You Cheated Yourself

— Wes Fenlon (@wesleyfenlon) April 10, 2019

Xcom You Cheated Not Only The Game But Yourself

We can and must do better than this. I’m not saying don’t laugh at the ridiculous, angry people, who treat video games like it’s their life – but don’t let that stop you considering and prioritising the well-being of targets of these angry gamers’ harassment, the kind of awfulness targets have to go through, all in this weird landscape they’re just trying to make a decent living out of. I don’t blame anyone for laughing at this – hell, I laughed at the copypasta because I’d rather focus on laughter than harassment (since I was being targeted, too, recently). But again, we can do better.