Cheating in video games used to be fun

Cheating goes way back in video games... but what does it even mean to cheat? And is it BAD? Polygon's Jenna Stoeber falls down the rabbit hole of cheating history, from the heady days of Action Replay, Game Genie, and Game Shark... to the terrible modern days of bot hacks in online multiplayer games, and publishers cracking down on players with threats of fines and jail time.
0:00 What is cheating, anyway?
1:06 Cheating at pinball
2:40 Cheating for credit
4:06 Cheating for POWER
6:12 The golden age of cheats
8:47 Cheat hardware for bad boyz
9:59 The ethics of cheating online
13:30 Prevention and punishment
15:20 Modern cheat culture
16:26 We still have fun here
Photos of Warren Robinett from GDC on Flickr: flickr.com/photos/officialgdc/
Under Creative Commons 2.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/...
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[@polygon]

Did you cheat as a kid? What was the game, and what was the cheat?

[@polygon]

Aside from Rosebud in The Sims, my most vivid memory is cheesesteakjimmys in Age of Empires 2 to generate food stores - Simone

[@Dog-Girl-Defect]

I've always been a cheater, mostly for the gratuity I'd get from seeing just how far I could take things before I broke something.

[@rionsanura]

There was one corner of the inventory in Diablo I that you could click on with it open while picking up a pile of gold that would duplicate the gold. It was a long slog to make it amount to anything, but I cheated religiously with it.

[@polygon]

OH I FORGOT there were definitely a bunch of cheats I did in Jedi Knight 2, but I only played multiplayer with bots. I think I used to like to fly a lot, and clip into the ground. - Simone

[@bigdawghoss9871]

R1,R2,L1,R2,Left,Down,Right,Up,Left,Down,Right,Up

[@DavisGSee]

"Instead of punishing bad behaviour, you should try to find the reason for that behaviour, and correct that, rather than just jumping to punishment." Thank you for this lovely commentary on the criminal justice system!

[@biznessman5632]

I'm a fan of "that's fine as long as they don't enforce those values on other people" as a commentary on abortion laws

[@PureGoldNeverCorrodes]

Or parenting.

[@freebirdiii]

Researching prevention can be done while still curing. As long as one isn't suspended to accomplish the other, sounds good to me!

[@andrewbarker1198]

@@biznessman5632 That is literally what abortion is: forcing your views on someone else (aka unborn child).

[@biznessman5632]

@@andrewbarker1198 that's where our views differ. As I do not belive any unborn is a child. Also there are religion's like Judaism that believe women always have the right to an abortion no matter what

[@commandrogyne]

As a disabled person i HAVE to rely on cheats to have fun in a lot of cases. My reaction time is piss poor, and I dont have the patience, fine motor skills, or coordination to succeed at complicated button presses, timed actions, and long combat. The last game i was able to complete without cheats was celeste, and thats because it had an accessibility feature built in. Cheating during competitive play, or on multiplayer with people who dont know or want to play with cheats is unfair, but during singleplayer games? Who cares! I'm not playing to prove anything, im playing to have fun, and often i need cheats to have fun.

[@polygon]

A great reason to cheat, not that anyone needs a reason!

[@maggie6152]

Likewise. I have hand and eye issues so I have a limited amount of time I can play before pain sets in. I don't understand why people need to prove to others they're better because they played X game Y way. I set personal challenges when I play solo games all the time: don't use these items, if character faints they can't be used, don't use the strong spells, etc. Sometimes I get sick of the challenge and drop a rule or two. Who. Cares. Play the game your way, let other's play it their way. Exceptions for competitive multiplayer, though trying to win against somebody cheating in Mario Kart is fun.

[@catborg780]

Same here. I have cerebral palsy & am happy I can play Splatoon thanks to gyro. I once said I really wanted to try elden ring & others like it but I just can't & I got the "get gud/it's in the creators vision" jerks😡

[@randomsmile9064]

@@catborg780 thats another sad thing about always online or all these multiplayer only games now days.. they take away the ability to cheat. Any single player game should come with 3 main things.. accessibility options, cheats and the ability to customize the games difficulty and features easily.. with sliders and stuff... there are plenty of games now days that give the players some control over there experience with difficulty sliders, loot sliders, experience sliders what not .. I don't see why single player games cant do this more often .. and it doesn't have any impact on anyone else. it only effects your experience of the game. Those that complain about that, saying it devalues there achievements.. all I have to say is.. who are you even playing for? are you playing for yourself, or just to show off to others?. More power to the players I say..

[@ddsjgvk]

This when they patched out the level up or was it unlimited ap in FFXV single player I was like why for a couple days.

[@sargentsnarky1065]

I'd say speedrunning is where "cheating" for the love of the game still happens all the time! While you do have glitchless runs, you also have a lot of any% types where the whole point is to use whatever shortcuts you can find, including cheats, to get through ASAP. I love the way it makes you think about the games as not only an intended experience but also a collection of code and modeling that can be 'played' as that as well.

[@polygon]

Perfectly said!

[@jbarbeau92]

That’s the thing that baffles me whenever speedrunning comes up and I see comments complaining that they’re ‘cheating’ or ‘not really that good’ or ‘that’s not how you’re supposed to play the game.’ People seem upset as if speedrunners were claiming to be better at the game than them. They’re just playing a different game at that point.

[@jwgh]

I think it would be fun if there was a movie based, not just on a video game, but on a speedrun of a video game. Could a screenwriter figure out a way to make glitching through a wall and skipping through dialogue as quickly as possible make sense narratively? Probably not, but I would like to see them try!

[@harrylane4]

@@jbarbeau92 I love the “that’s not how you’re supposed to play the game” argument. Like, even a glitchless run isn’t how you’re “supposed” to beat the game. I don’t think you’re intensed to be able to get through the Witcher 3 in 8 hours or whatever.

[@harrylane4]

@@jwgh I wanna see the rock crouch in front of a corner a few times before wrong warping to turbo hell

[@WillOrrWhat]

I legitimately owe my career to cheating in games. When I was a kid, I ended up really falling down the rabbit hole of cheating a ton in N64 and GB games, and unsatisfied with dev-intended cheats, I bought GameSharks for my consoles. Still not content with cheats from magazines and the burgeoning internet, I made my own cheats! GameSharks included what was a specialized debugger for games, and so I started learning about what memory was, the process of tracing a program's execution, etc. Today I'm a software developer, and I use debuggers all the time. I still use the skills I learned from my GameShark everyday at work. I've done some reverse engineering as well, using the same skills. All this because I wanted to cheat at videogames when I was like 10

[@Kaiasky]

YUP. a bit younger, but the same story on windows XP games and Cheat Engine.

[@polygon]

This makes me so happy!!

[@SFreeper]

Generally playing PC games in the 90s made you ready for an IT job 😅

[@thedevicebook]

Hmm, so maybe that twerp who always cheat at chess when he was 7 will grow up to be a chess master? The sad thing is that I was the grown adult who taught him how to play and he cheated every freaking time so I eventually stopped playing chess with him entirely

[@qamarat8366]

@@thedevicebook nah, but when he starts making his own cheats and learns about all of the strategies behind board games to more effectively cheat that's when he might have a chance

[@owenw.1643]

i've always had a hatred for people that cheat in multiplayer games, but when it comes to single player its not really my business. as long as you're having fun and you feel fulfilled do whatever you want, just dont get other people involved who dont wanna be

[@NovemberXXVII]

I've never really had the time to waste getting mad at individual cheaters. Online multiplayer has been around how long now? If I'm playing a shooter that's even remotely competitive, and don't see obvious aimbots, I don't assume it's because people haven't tried to cheat at the game -- I assume it's either because whoever's running the servers does a good job detecting cheats, or because the game was designed in such a way that good strategy can overpower perfect accuracy. Likewise, if cheating's common enough in a game to seriously harm the experience, the people deciding to cheat are not *causally speaking* the ones making that happen. It's a well known player behavior, and it's the company's responsibility to make their product work how they advertised it -- if they advertised me a competitive game, but fail to run servers in a way that enforces it, I'm not giving them a free pass for delivering a product that doesn't live up to what they promised. If it's a serious, game-wide problem, my solidarity with other consumers comes before a personal beef with any given random online stranger. And if a game doesn't have enough endemic cheating to ruin the whole game? Cool, every 50th match I get to laugh at running into a random cheater and having it descend into other people hunting them for sport.

[@kangarumpy]

Though, it's annoying af when a friend brags about what they did in a single player game while cheating.

[@muuubiee]

​@@NovemberXXVII So basically... You only think AAA games should exist with a huge budgets? Anti-cheat is expensive and impossible. There are always ways to get around it. You may also use hardware cheats which are almost impossible to cheat (i.e. have something to sniff the info being sent to a monitor, then run a image detection AI on that image, and decide where to aim, then have a hard link to the mouse which will make small adjustments for you. Literally nothing interacts with the game. But yet, you assume that even indie game should spit up the multi million dollar cost of trying to battle the cheats. The individuals are the problem, and if they're caught cheating there should be a year to a life time ban from all and any game that is multiplayer. This would have to be enforced by governments, basically, by providing social security number for registration.

[@monckey44]

@@kangarumpy if they own up to the cheating, why is it annoying? some of my best hijinks in crusader kings came about through cheating, some through ironman. I’m gonna share that cheat story with my friends that play to show how much fun playing god can be every now and then

[@ddsjgvk]

Okay what about unlock everything cheats like in call of duty? Because it's a turn off to get into those games a few months after and worse after a year.

[@cnmnnaturalist]

Cheats didn't just add more fun or exploration to a game, they also increased accessibility. It allowed people to really enjoy the game they paid for. They could experience the game even if they didn't have the time to commit to playing it legitimately, and folks with disabilities would be able to play without being unfairly excluded because they couldn't react fast enough, among other things. Cheating could also mean you could just sit back and enjoy the game in a more relaxing fashion.

[@max_208]

Celese's assist mode would have been considered cheating a while back, now it's just accessibility features.

[@foul-fortune-feline]

@@max_208 I'm not the only one who thought of celeste then lol

[@dreaminpng]

Hades’s “God Mode” is an example of cheat to feature for just this scenario!

[@storageheater]

@@LB-yg2br You can't lose Outer Wilds and that's a game that does things a movie simply could never do. To a lesser extent I'd say What Remains of Edith Finch also does things a movie can't do, and that's even more unloseable than Outer Wilds

[@foul-fortune-feline]

​@@LB-yg2br Spoken like a cod player who's never played anything else in there life.

[@wyrdsworth]

That extremely feral turn-to-camera hiss of "99 fuckin' masterballs" truly speaks to the cheat-lovin' gremlin in all of us.

[@haphazardlark1502]

That moment made me have to pause the video and come back five minutes later cause it fucking broke me for a minute, it was great Idk how to edit videos, has anyone cut that clip out and posted it on its own so I can torment my friends with it?

[@briondalion3696]

hey, I wanted a full pokedex because of my completionist/ocd nature

[@IceCrystalWolf]

I feel like we sometimes forget that games are about having fun. Maybe it is fun for some players to die to the same boss 72 times till they kill it, but for others fun might be being OP and killing rows of mobs and chaining their abilities without losing much (if any) HP. "Just pick games accordingly" one might argue, and that's fair, but if someone likes a specific game (its aesthetic, mechanics, graphics, characters, etc..) why can't *both* types of gamers play the same game? As long as you are having fun and not ruining someone else's game I think it's all good fun. Whatever floats your boat. IMO we have gone too far with identifying ourselves with the games we play and the ways we play them.

[@polygon]

This comes up all the time on the Discord where my friends and I stream Elden Ring. Some people watch and are like "yeah this is never going to be me," some of us choose to fight Margit for three hours in a row... - Simone

[@harrylane4]

Being OP is fun as hell. That’s why people still buy dynasty warriors, despite those games being… not good anymore. Overcoming seemingly impossible odds through hard work and effort is also fun. Souls is the game for that crowd. If people want to play elden ring like dynasty warriors, more power to ‘em. It’s their $60, not mine.

[@xhantechan5324]

Thank you for writing this, I fully agree! I think part of it is that players feel their effort is being devalued if someone 'claims' they've beaten the game or similar when they've been using cheats. So they get angry at them for not playing it 'properly'. But what do I know? I've gotten 100% achievements on my favorite games by 'exploiting' features that have (probably purposefully) been left in the game because I didn't want to deal with parts that weren't fun for me.

[@spectrobit5554]

"Just pick games accordingly" one might argue, and that's fair, but if someone likes a specific game, why can't both types of gamers play the same game?" Developers have budgets, directors have a vision. If they both make room for you, great, I'm all for inclusivity, but to expect it, or even worse, demand it of all games, is simply reductive of the medium as an artform. Games can be about "having fun" for you, but they might not be for the developers, who don't treat it as exclusively entertainment. It is the reason why establishing a modding community within a game is so important, it gives control back to the player, to do whatever they please with it.

[@yuu34567]

70% of my first playthrough of Skyrim was done on godmode. I wanted to complete the main story as quickly as possible because I was really invested in it, but because of that I was always underleveled. So I just turned on godmode and completed it that way. It was really fun. In subsequent playthroughs I used it much less and that was also fun.

[@axemtitanium]

Cheats going from bug to feature to paid DLC is one of the saddest indictments of the industry.

[@dagothskitten]

capitalism breeds innovation :)

[@DrZaius3141]

You missed the last step where you don't pay for the DLC but for loot boxes in the hopes of getting the cheat you need in it.

[@naoremonth]

I think that a lot of people who made cheats for the love of the game have transitioned into modding in general? Maybe it's just a bias of what parts of the internet I see and interact with, but to use Pokemon as an example: there are a LOT of Pokemon romhacks out there. Some are silly, some edit the game to give you more options, and some even make large sweeping changes to how the game works - and I think all of that is done out of a love of Pokemon. Some of it is a desire to create their own Pokemon game, of course, but others simply want to take that game they love and make some changes to it - similar to what you were talking about in regards to people who made cheats for games out of a similar love.

[@thefamouscommenter]

My favorite cheat as a kid was in Club Penguin. There was a very specific glitch you could exploit where after playing one game, if you refreshed immediately it would allow you to keep earning the amount of coins you got from playing that game. After club penguin fixed the glitch and I ran low on the infinite money I had, I stopped playing soon after. It was no longer fun to play games to have grind for money after I had a taste of the good life

[@polygon]

oh this is amazing

[@XescoPicas]

I had a similar experience with the mobile version of Mortal Kombat X, many years ago The game kept giving me my reward for a mission or an event (don’t remember which one) repeatedly, and by the time it stopped I had so much premium in-game money I could just upgrade all my favourite characters as much as I wanted

[@kevrock]

I really appreciate that in CONTROL, Remedy embraced the idea of “cheats as accessibility options” and added it to the gameplay settings. They allowed you to tweak everything from sensitivity of aim assist, how much damage you take per hit, all the way to true invulnerability. This was not a permanent new game “choose a difficulty”, this was fine tuned, turn on/off at any time, at-will cheats. This allows players to choose their own level of comfort and even give you a temporary out if you were skill or ability gated from getting past one section or one boss that would otherwise force you to miss out on the rest of the game.

[@theletters9623]

honestly my personal rule with cheating is "If you're the only one who's playing, then the cheating is okaying" I don't cheat in all single player games, but like money cheats in the sims? Hell Yeah

[@camdyndarksidecat7038]

Sims is also interesting in that it's not an in-game workaround people mean when they talk about sims cheats, it's a deliberate command, but the developers clearly make some of those incredibly easy to access and use specifically because people like to play with them.

[@popgothika8078]

As someone who is disabled I rely on "cheating" by modding games for accessibility and my general mantra is "if it isn't fun, what's the point?" I don't play online games so I'm very rarely concerned about what other people think but I do still get flack for something as simple as using mods for remapping my buttons in games that don't have that included which is the exact opposite of what it was like just a decade or so ago. And sometimes you really do just enjoy finding a spot you go glitching through a wall to skip an area you hate. It's a secret and it's fun!

[@dnys_7827]

this makes me think of nuzlocke runs of pokemon games. it's a set of self imposed rules you can play the game with, and in the small community that's formed around it there's a pretty strong norm of 'your run, your rules'. meanwhile it's common to use literal cheating to get info about your run or add infinite rare candies to skip the grinding or whatnot. so it's a place where you can clearly see the differences between 'cheating according to the code of the game' and 'cheating according to the spirit of the game', and how those things can sometimes be directly opposite each other. and it's neat how the fact that it's a series of mostly well defined rules that leave some space up to interpretation and are enforced nowhere in the code of the game, that opens a window for this more open and chill attitude.

[@notyourjakey]

When I did my first nuzlock as a kid I got so depressed when my favourite Pokémon died I went "if I get to a Pokémon center within like 2 minutes I can keep him bc they did cpr or something and saved him. If I don't then I'll put him in a box called 'graveyard' and resurrect him when I finish the game with my awesome champion powers" bc I was doing it on my own purely for fun, and losing my favourite Pokémon half way through would ruin my enjoyment xD

[@maggie6152]

@@notyourjakey I called my dead pokemon box (didn't release them) the Pokemon Tower so I could honor all the fallen heroes that were lost along the road to becoming Champion.😁

[@Shindai]

It still is for some people. As an accessibility feature I still hold that all games should have cheats made possible (but optional, obviously) in single player modes (except things like survival or time trial with social leaderboards to compare with friends, where it would bork results.) I have PTSD and other stuff that means I basically crumble under pressure, so for some games that are too challenging it can cross a line where it stops being fun, and very quickly stops being possible. I had to abandon Spiderman: Miles Morales on PS4 because I'm not able to play well enough. That's not fun. If it comes to PC, and I can cheat? I can complete it, that will be fun. Fun is relative. If you don't like no fail state play, don't use it. Leave it for those of us who enjoy and/or need it.

[@Ghostpigeon5304]

Yep, I’m definitely another who very much relies on cheat-style mods a lot of the time as a form of accessibility in games. I have Tourette’s and so there is a fine line between a fun challenge and frustration/stress setting off a tic attack. Being able to ‘cheat’ and remove/change features in single-player games just means I actually get a chance to enjoy and get more out of a game that I straight-up couldn’t have been able to play otherwise

[@northstarjakobs]

I am of the opinion that cheats and difficulty options are essential to making games accessible. For example, one of my favorite games right now is Hades. the existence of the "god mode" difficulty option is the only way I'm able to play the game (it's an option you can turn on that reduces the amount of damage you take, and it goes up based on the number of times you've died, I think mine is around 75%). I really appreciate the fact that not only does it exist, but it doesn't shame a player for using it (calling it "god mode" rather than "easy mode").

[@yungoldman2823]

Dude. If videogames are triggering your ptsd, its time to find another hobby. I speak as someone who has also been diagnosed as such, and I play videogames, they certainly dont have that effect on me.

[@brendanwatroba8568]

@@yungoldman2823 I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of 'accessibility features'

[@sidhackney8831]

@@yungoldman2823 It's almost like everyone's trauma is different and people shouldn't be expected to cut sources of joy out of their lives entirely because trauma has made them more difficult

[@drcatboy9278]

"cheating", finding exploits and glitches is actually a huge part of the speedrunner community, and you really see that evolution of the cat and mouse game between developers. there's an entire subset of the speedrunning community, "glitch hunters", who still do something like this -- its interesting to see the idea of cheats being a popular thing to do in games to now becoming a subset of a niche community

[@briondalion3696]

it's funny watching a really good speedrunner completely blast through a game and you're watching the video of the devs reacting xD. Although any TAS (tool assisted speedrunning), I absolutely do not respect at all, and I don't acknowledge the "record"

[@rowboatcop4451]

Its an inevitability what with how social media works, but i do miss the days where you learned about a cheat/ secret from a kid on a playground or someone's stoner older brother and it had a 50% chance of even being true, instead of just on your timeline the day of release. They just feel less... secret now

[@polygon]

We almost got a bit of that with early Elden Ring I think, since there was just so MUCH to discover. But in general, yeah!! I miss it. - Simone

[@avataraarow]

I had the same experience as polygon team with elden ring, it was so huge that like 90% of the stuff I figured out was just me messaging some friends on discord and being like “have you found the isekai box?” And then sharing stuff like that. Not using much social media does help too, I got some secrets spoiled by Zullie on KZbin but that’s about it

[@MrSmitheroons]

I pretty much thought this question was unanswerable -- why cheating feels different now. You did a really good job putting into actual words (and actual cohesive paragraphs!!) where I could only come up with vague feelings, childhood memories and nostalgia. I end up watching Polygon and finding out as much, or more, about myself and people vs just the games themselves in a vacuum... or the default accepted narrative that people accept as being the meaning or significance of "those games". Thanks for always turning over a New Leaf TM in these videos that I hadn't considered before.

[@polygon]

Thank you for the thoughtful comment! We had quite a few talks about this after realizing that a simple history of cheating wouldn't be enough to cover why modern cheats - specifically when it comes to online games - are so freaking depressing. Glad it resonated with you! - Simone

[@MrSmitheroons]

​@@polygon Wow, I am honestly hyped to get a response. Love your videos, Simone! Shout out to the Polygon crew, you da best. Keep Gaming Weird. As for "depressing" for multiplayer cheats, I kind of see it differently. They're more frustrating the higher the stakes are. And I find myself unable to really take online multiplayer too seriously, so for me different/lower stakes. (Partly because I'm not so good at it, partly because I like the absurdness and calling the bluff of all the too-seriousness of it.) I guess I long for the days when multiplayer was mostly for goofing around. Some of the best matches I ever had in Halo 2 were like "um, what? I didn't know my XBox could do this??" when folks loaded hacked maps and stuff. Or just people flying around disregarding reality, less so disrupting the match but making it obsolete with their newer better shenanigans. I remember entire categories of custom experiences existed only as hacks before Halo 3 (somewhat accidentally) made those a bit more mainstream with Forge mode. I guess I am an outsider looking in not much into "serious" online gaming sessions. I like the chaos. Do I get to call this Dadaism? Is that allowed? Anyhow, keep it up, love y'all's videos.

[@sethswheelhouse]

I was just thinking it was about time for a hot new polygon take. The presentation, humor, and editorial talking points were as apropos and masterful in their delivery as ever. Amazing stuff Jenna, and the rest of the team too!

[@kevintierney1647]

Totally agree, great video

[@Raspberrysorbaet]

I feel similarly about when people try to make me feel bad for using walkthroughs, like if I’m super stuck I’m gonna figure out what part I’m missing! Usually it’s a misunderstanding of what the goal or rules are, and I would have never gotten there without it!

[@Kaiasky]

My favorite cheat experience came from a Kirby Air Ride GameFAQs. It claimed to tell you how to unlock Kracko (the cloud boss) as a playable character The instructions were like: - first, load into city trial free ride as a RED KIRBY. Get in the boost star. Fly outside the walls in the ocean. - Eventually, you'll hit an invisible wall. Line yourself up with it and tape down the A button. Charge up for 99:99:59.99. - release A to perform a mega-boost. You will break through the invisible wall. - Keep going straight and you will see a house. Go inside and you will unlock Kracko! I spent 5 days not playing anything on the GameCube and making sure my parents wouldn't turn it off or touch the controller. The moment finally came and it didn't work, there was just a normal boost. And I just remember being so confused and I was like. I guess I have to try again?? And that was when my mom saw fit to give me the "sometimes people on the internet lie" talk for the first time.

[@toothfairy10133]

the discussion of the konami code reminds me of when i was 12 and my friend input that code into vogue's website and a dinosaur with a hat came on the screen. if u pressed a again you got another dinosaur with a randomly generated hat. it was the best experience of my life, no contest.

[@ixkahn]

Honestly, that's part of the reason why I love Breath of the Wild so much. Sure, they're arguably more glitches than outright cheats, but being able to windbomb or BLSS to get to somewhere super fast, or durability transfer or duplicate your favorite weapons is an amazing feeling, and it doesn't cheapen or tribializes the experience at all. And it's not like you can just accidentally windbomb, either, so the community really has to come together and share their discoveries to find cool new glitches and techniques. I hope more games learn from that, honestly, and not run to patch everything if it's not actually gamebreaking.

[@MichaelStanton]

I begged my mom to get me a GameShark and when I got one, it broke like a month later.... So GameShark Cheated me in a sense.

[@polygon]

never trust a cheater

[@oliver3401]

I think an important part of the conception of cheating in single player games as "cheating" you of an intended experience nowadays is due to the increased defensiveness on the part of gamers that video games are Art, are Designed For Things (and thus, if you thwart that design, you're Experiencing It Wrong). Like you said, it's a detachment from "cheating as love for a game," moved into "cheating as improper appreciation for a game"

[@legendofFranktheTank]

I credit buying an action replay as a kid, and just using it to mess around with changes different hex values I didn't understand or know what they were for and seeing what happened in pokemon as a big part of the reason games stopped being just magic, and started being a series of systems I could understand. It's would led me to want to make mods for games, which is till a hobby of mine to this day

[@polygon]

This is really cool!!

[@simonkozik997]

I kind of wish there was a discussion of speed running as cheating. That extends games far beyond their original lifetime, even while allowing you to complete a game quickly.

[@polygon]

That’s definitely its own video!

[@jeremyowens3319]

As someone with a career in software QA, learning that the Konami code came from a testing/admin setup that was passed to prod... it tickles me to no end.

[@williamsmith169]

I'm disabled, and sometime I cheat in offline games becase I litteraly have to. Game publishers still don't include us when designing their games half the time.

[@aimelle3]

Cookie Clicker (at least the in-browser version) often spark this kind of debate. It's really easy to "hack" the game as it's just javascript, and it's a single-player game. Is it cheating to use your browser javascript console to hack in a ton of cookies for yourself? Does it matter? Is it, in fact, encouraged? The game has hidden achievements for it. Personally, I think if a game is single-player, with absolutely no way to play/interact with others (so no leader boards, no trading, etc.) then it's all fair game.

[@marksando3082]

"Instead of punishing bad behavior, you should try to find the reason for that behavior, and correct that, rather than just jumping to punishment." This reminds me of when I used to play WoW and how so many players would complain about gold farmers driving up prices in the auction house without acknowledging that Blizzard literally encouraged that behavior with how they designed the game to function. Blizzard kept trying to crack down on and blame gold farmers while refusing to address the root issues that drove that behavior because it was too lucrative for them.

[@Kenajcrap]

This video is wonderful in that it offers great arguments for cheating in single-player games and even in multiplayer games in some situations. Although, I think you should have dedicated a little more time to talking about the kind of cheating that at the same time: - Is not inherently defensive - Prevents other people from having fun - Is not able to be de-incentivized by supplying the feature they are forcing in - Does not evolve as "part" to a new "emergent gameplay" kind of situation A big example of that is just plain old aimbotting in competitive shooters, which I would wager makes up a big part of the actual cheating done in 2022, yet it was basically not mentioned in the video, which I think is unfair. Doesn't help that this kind of cheat that just "enhances" the inputs from the player are the worse kind to deal with by game developers since client-side anti-cheat software is inherently ineffective (since the cheater ultimately controls the hardware) and most game companies do not have the budget or knowledge to develop accurate server-side detection methods. So yea, the video made did a great job at explaining the history of cheating (never would have known that punkbuster started with Team Fortress!!) and I also definitely agree with single-player cheating being a great and awesome thing to do, I just think that this facet I described needed some more expanding on.

[@kashiichan]

A second part that discusses the technological aspect of cheating and how it's changed over time would be incredibly fascinating.

[@JeemsJustJeems]

Wow I was literally just thinking about this topic yesterday and about how I never would have beaten 99% of the games I played as a kid if not for the built in or gameshark cheats I used in everything. I think there are absolutely people still cheating for the love of it or not JUST in competative sense, when I played CS 15 years ago I made and used cheats that changed the colors of maps so everything would be "night mode" and easier on the eyes than a lot of the bright bright desert maps. It was totally a cheat and gave me advantages but I was still wicked bad and only did it to enhance the game not win. Nowadays groups still seem to realease trailers, lots of big games have community mod addons which enable all manner of cheats, and programs like Cheat Engine enable all kinds of cheating in all kinds of games. I wish games had built in codes still though, that was like 25% of getting a new game back in the day was messing with the fun cheats. Either that or go the route Celeste did with it's "assist mode" which lets you enable a few cheats and doesn't punish you for using them to beat the game like some other games do.

[@radicalmallard]

I remember playing games on my gameboy advance sp that had cheat codes built in, like a place in the menu where you could input a code. It made it a lot more fun because I wouldn’t get stuck on a hard part and never be able to play the rest of the game. I remember buying a couple of games that I just could not get through the first level, bc I was 7 and bad at games and I would just never play the game again.

[@CharmingMew]

if I had to point out one game where "cheating" for fun and nothing else is still around, I would point to the Stardew Valley modding community. People making recolors and stuff like "letting you pause time so you don't fall asleep in the mines all the damn time" to the literal whole new story arcs some folks have made, these mods are pretty much only for the single player mode, and like, it's a farming/dating sim, there's basically no prestige to be had from 100%ing it. So mostly those hacks just exist to extend your fun

[@CurtisCPhotography]

I need "99 FUCKING MASTER BALLS!" on a motivational poster

[@Soladat]

There are some games that are just too difficult for someone like me to be able to enjoy without cheating. Without cheats (and cheating devices like the action replay) I straight up would not have gotten the chance to experience some really good games. And without those cheats, I might have returned the game or not even bought it in the first place. One reason I will always support non-online cheats is the accessibility it provides. Maybe you wanna play a game thats high intensity, like Elden Ring, and you want to experience the story or characters etc that the game has to offer, but youre disabled and just cant beat the bosses. Or maybe you just suck at video games, thats fine too. Cheats let people experience the game regardless of their ability.

[@SixCubitMan]

"Nobody is cheating just for the love of the game." Pretty solid video overall, but this ending line is such a hard miss. People mod games constantly! It was less then a month after Elden Ring came out that we had attempts at total balance overhauls, or turning off requirements for upgrade stones, in both cases because people thought it would make the game more fluid and fun.

[@Quicksilvir]

That Castle Wolfenstein cheat ad about "fixing" what the devs won't reminded me of Elden Ring too, specifically the co-op mod. I'm totally cheating by breaking the co-op rules of Elden Ring, but I'm actually enjoying a co-op experience instead of an experience that ends up with me only summoning for specific bosses. Speaking of the Co-op mod, really interesting how the same discussions of design intent and play philosophy that went on in Diablo also have occurred with the mod regarding invasions.

[@sportnenny]

yeah i also found this angle weird, i get that it's more of a "hook" than just "A History of Cheating" but it just doesn't seem true - cheating is still fun and people still do it because they love the game

[@maxanaxam6935]

something that actually does give me the vibes of that old school secret hunting and cheat finding community is the modern-day breath of the wild glitch hunting community. the youtuber kleric has an excellent series out called "ruin your new file" that walks through a bunch of the hacks and glitches and exploits that the fandom has found over the years since the game came out, all of which basically adds up to a whole new way to play the game, which is delightful, in my opinion. but even in that community, there are some glitches that have since been patched out of the game, like the infamous "lizalfos curse," though it has since resurfaced as the "hinox curse." ill be very interested to see what of these secrets are still present in the sequel, given that its meant to be in the same world and engine and everything. will we still be able to moon jump? item smuggle? shield clip? will those things have been patched out? will they have been worked in as legitimized features? id love to at least see bullet time bounces worked legitimately into the game, though maybe some of the other ones are a bit silly for the tone of the world.

[@kidsea13]

Remember when games had cheats that let you turn your car into a jelly or changed the weather effects so that it would literally be raining cats and dogs? I miss those days

[@ddsjgvk]

GTA 4 and 5 cheats are embarrassing compared to San Andreas.

[@Hatchmatic]

I also did the Missingno cheat, because I wanted my funny rectangle child. I didn't know about infinite items, I just thought it was cool as heck to have a secret pokemon! I also didn't know about all the save corruption they could cause, so...

[@polygon]

Oopsy…

[@nakenmil]

This reminds me of every discussion I've ever had with a Souls fan. "Hey, why not just add like an easy mode or cheat mode for those who just want to fuck around and see the story?" "NNNOOO THE GAME IS DESIGNED FOR YOU TO TRY AGAIN AND AGAIN UNTIL YOU MAKE IT AND FEEL SATISFIED" That's... that's every game. Literally every game. Didn't fucking stop me from giving myself infinite gold in Warcraft 2 or infinite movement in Heroes 3 Armageddon's Blade. Just disable multiplayer functions and achievements (who fucking cares) and let me fuck around to look at the pretty models.

[@kashiichan]

These people fail to understand that if I literally cannot beat the game, I'm not going to want to play the game. Or buy the game. And that any burgeoning interest in the game will rapidly diminish into nothing. I don't play games because I want to experience hours/days/weeks/months of pain before I eventually "get good" enough to win; I play for fun. Being repeatedly stomped on is not fun for me.

[@wowanothercookie]

I also get annoyed at how many great games are just massive, difficult and with specific mechanics to learn. Like 1 or 2 games to grind is fine, but I can't (or will not) get good at all of them, I dont have the patience or sanity for it. Just let people enjoy things casually, who is good at every hobby they have!

[@OtepRalloma]

I kinda get the perspective of wanting that type of power, but I'm also a deep believer in artistic vision. If the creators believe their game shouldn't have an easy mode, then it shouldn't. And that's fine. I play Souls because I love the idea of facing a challenge, and the only way to get past it is to grit my teeth and fight until the end. I also play Devil May Cry, ranging from Easy to DMD, because power fantasies are fun. Different experiences. Different visions. Different art.

[@janehates]

Funny you mention Pokémon, because that’s one of the communities where in competitive there’s a kind of cheating that seems to somewhat normalized, which is hacked Pokémon. The only rules for it are that the Pokémon still has to fit within the possible parameters of one you could come by honestly, so you can control which of the Pokémon’s available abilities it has, but couldn’t pick one that’s outside of what normally could. (There’ve been people who have done that mostly as a prank though such as giving Sableye the “Wonder Guard” ability which because of its type combo made it immune to ALL damage) Overall hacks to save time rather than give a clear edge over someone who refused to use them. That said when people run teams entirely made of hacked shiny legendaries with maxed-out stats it does get *annoying*, which made it extra satisfying when I crushed one with my laboriously hand-bred NON-legendary team.

[@SinisterShrink]

The only time I've ever used cheats/hacks in an online multiplayer game was when I got so frustrated with other hackers that I installed some for myself. Every time an obvious hacker would join the server, I would turn on my hacks to try to target them and shoot them through the walls, until they would rage quit and leave the server. It was in an FPS called Ace of Spades back in it's alpha/beta days, before it came to steam. So I'm proud to say I used my hacks for good, rather than for ruining other people's enjoyment.

[@yab01keef67]

Thats my dream. You are a god damn hero

[@Bboy10110]

Another thing that anticheat software often fails to consider is the fact that 90% of the time it totally ruins any chances for linux players to even play the game. The software marks the game as being cheated because it's running through wine or proton, so linux players just, aren't allowed to play.

[@Cuil]

This is going to sound silly, but... I couldn't play Subnautica or its sequel if not for cheats, because otherwise my thalassophobia made playing the game impossible. Turning off creature aggression and drowning meant I could explore and still have the challenge of the survival mechanics, without having a heart attack at every little sound thinking something is about to jump out of the screen and drag me into the endless depths of a watery grave. And even with those cheats on the game is still terrifying to me, honestly, but at least it's playable! Not gonna lie, it really sucks when you love love LOVE the ocean and underwater games in general but you have deep water related phobias. 😅

[@arebalwithacause]

I think the mod community is the natural progression of the "fun cheating" scene.

[@LolaliciousSmiley]

Does anyone remember the year that Cheat Code Central did the April fools prank where "cheats were deemed illegal and the website is shutting down"? It got me good. Also, I used to go to the magazine section of any store that had one and look for cheat-code magazines to steal cheats from.

[@pantio2194]

I love cheats!!! I love cheats so much!!!! I used to be a huge sort of game purist, looking down on people for using cheats, but yknow. After some years spent in therapy for a bunch of stuff, I look back and realise that playing games put me under immense pressure. The uncomfortable kind. I love cheating!! And I never wanna sit in front of a game again and get genuinely frustrated or upset. It's literally a game

[@ribbontoast]

as someone who grew up in the 80s "toby foxes of their time" is the most amazing line in this thing

[@Schraiber]

Tbh I cheated when I was a kid because I was fucking terrible at games. I literally don't think I became able to beat games "as intended" until I was in college. I was just legitimately incompetent

[@polygon]

Valid!!

[@MiseFreisin]

@@LB-yg2br or maybe different people learn at different rates and in different ways and they could have spent years bashing their head against a brick wall for nothing. at any rate, it doesn't bother me, nor does it seem to bother them so I hope it doesn't bother you either

[@MiseFreisin]

@@LB-yg2br I've read outliers. But this "you only cheated yourself" crap is patronising and just not necessary.

[@kashiichan]

@@LB-yg2br I do want to gently point out that your statement doesn't leave any room for legitimate barriers that exist; it undermines people's experiences with a "conditioned to quit" mindset. That would be problematic at best, and downright ableist at worst. I sincerely hope you keep individual capabilities and experiences in mind during your training. Best of luck to you.

[@warped_rider]

@@LB-yg2br "they have been conditioned to quit" Funny, I see Soulsborne players telling people to quit and play something else all the time at even the slightest complaint about the difficulty, or not having 7 extra hours a day to grind and "git gud."

[@bitnewt]

I cheat all the time, from turning over extra cards in Solitaire to looking up puzzle guides for Zelda and turning keepInventory on in some of my Minecraft worlds. I play games to have a fun experience, not prove my badassery or get frustrated, so when my patience runs out I get some help. Going around judging people for their different ways of having fun doesn't seem like much fun to me.

[@aSpectrumofDorky]

God I just spent the week at my friend’s house and we watched a bunch of Stardew Valley videos on exploits. She went on to say she wanted an “organic” playthrough and I said I was doing a capitalist run so “everything goes.”

[@XescoPicas]

My sister used that glitch SV used to have that made the game mistake a specific kind of wallpaper for a dinosaur egg. So you could get the wallpaper for free, put it in an incubator, and hatch a dino. Or put it in a machine to make free mayonnaise. I never used that glitch before it was patched out and I still haven’t found a legit dino egg in my playthrough :c

[@charlieni645]

The culture seems to have come full circle: from selling cheats to players to fetishizing difficulty and lack of options.

[@ajnyte5309]

This makes me wonder, where is the line between modding and cheating? Because there are a lot of games where mods are super acceptable (most notably, I haven't seen anyone get angry around Skyrim or Stardew Valley mods) and then there are games where similar mods would be seen as cheats, it feels like. So where is that line? Is it like you said, just based on the purpose behind the mod? Is it a mod if it's just for the love of the game and a cheat otherwise? Is it game specific? I have no answers, just food for thought

[@polygon]

Exactly the kind of question that shows why this video was in danger of being hours and hours long! - Simone

[@kashiichan]

@@polygon I dunno, I'd definitely be interested in watching a four-hour-long games philosophy video

[@xliquidflames]

Oh, such fond memories. Any time we went to the grocery store when I was a kid in the early 90s, my mom would know exactly where to find me: the magazine rack. I'd bring pencil and paper and sit on the floor writing down every tip, trick, and code I could find in the time it took her to get our groceries. I'd look for games that I owned first. If I had any extra time, I'd start writing down info on games I didn't own so I could barter them at school with friends who did own those games. Then, one day, I heard at school that a specific magazine had all the fatalities for Mortal Kombat. I _begged_ my mom to go to the grocery store. A few days later, we finally got out of necessity. I was out of the car before she could even get it in park. I raced to the magazine rack and began scanning it for the mag in question. And then I see it and my entire world is crushed as I realize it's wrapped in a plastic sleeve. _What is this?!_ I can't read it without buying it?? What... Wh... Whyyyyyyyy!!!!! Why is the universe so cruel?! To this day, I still have no idea how to do those fatalities. The magazine is out of print and it's impossible to find. Those moves for Mortal Kombat will forever be a hole in my gamer heart.

[@zmanzono]

I cheat often. I love idle games, they push my buttons in just the right way to give me a constant flow of dopamine... but after a while when I feel myself getting too attached and missing obligations, I look up cheats in order to break that cycle and allow me to get back to real life... maybe it's about time again.

[@aleciagatlin4791]

This is one of my favorite videos y’all have done in awhile. Really well done, Jenna and Simone!

[@MrClaymore152]

The best cheating experience I had growing up was playing Enter the Matrix with my parents. They were massive fans and played the game more than me. They got the game guide and there were SO many secrets inside. There were clues and ciphers in the text for cheat codes for infinite ammo, health, and bullet time. Is was so fun to comb through the book for secrets.

[@polygon]

Oooh, that's cool that your parents got into it! That sounds so fun. I always regretted not being able to get any of the Matrix games as a tween/teen - Simone

[@areoladan5580]

I found a scuffed up encyclopedia of game cheats in a parking lot in the early 2000s, not knowing up until then that dev cheats were pretty common in gaming. It was like finding the holy grail except *naughty*

[@hedgehog3180]

I really miss the time where cheats unlocked fun nonsense content like big head mode and was just about having fun. It's a shame that modern single player games just don't have them at all anymore.

[@rionsanura]

Game freaks have surpassed the stage of seeking capitalistic pleasure. I'm sure we have. Amazing video, Jenna.

[@polygon]

we are All game freaks

[@draculactica]

yeah i guess cheating in games used to be fun, but i recently restarted an entire playthrough of mass effect because halfway through the second game i decided i wanted to date garrus but was unwilling to cheat on liara to do so

[@polygon]

OOF

[@jamis117]

Love Jenna, she’s got chaotic big sister energy

[@SteamClockWork]

Thanks for having captions! And also for the fun little notes y'all leave in them to describe music, that means a lot!

[@douglasboyle6544]

"Hell is gaming with other people online" Yes, yes it is.

[@redpandamaniacal]

I remember never finishing twilight princess on the wii because there's this one on the rails shooting sequence that you have to complete that keeps repeating itself and if you don't complete it you can't progress in the story. Because I wasn't good at shooting with the wii's motion controls, after many attempts I just stopped. If there had been some sort of cheat that I had access to to skip that part, perhaps I could've enjoyed the rest of the game at the time. For a lot of games, experiencing the story and atmosphere can be a big draw, and this kind of thing might fall under the option of customizable difficulty levels these days instead of cheats. Cheats really have become features in some cases, like you said.

[@Dog-Girl-Defect]

Cheating is always fun and fair as long as it comes from the game itself and no one gets hurt over it.

[@thewingedporpoise]

I think even if it doesn't come from the game itself and doesn't hurt anyone's experience it is fun and fair

[@Dog-Girl-Defect]

@@thewingedporpoise oh by all means mod your games, but personally it sucks the fun out of it for me. Because if you can have anything you want when you want it, it kinda defeats the purpose. Normally cheating requires work and it always has its limitations but mods or external cheats basically allow you to have God like powers over everything and without some kind of a challenge the game usually just turns into a playground instead of something more challenging. It's like creative mode on minecraft vs survival.

[@thewingedporpoise]

@@Dog-Girl-Defect I think the overall importance for everyone is to play the games how they enjoy them, and if someone prefers being a god then I'm glad that they have such an ability personally I like survival in Minecraft somewhat but I definitely use KeepInventory because it's just a hassle to deal with game limitations that only serve to frustrate me, though I certainly wouldn't have anything against someone who found the classic more preferable

[@Dog-Girl-Defect]

@@thewingedporpoise I agree completely, play how you like to play. On a personal level I like limitation, usually helps me find ways around them and in an almost ironic sense helps me cheat.

[@SuperVoodude]

Thanks for articulating something I've felt for so long (cheating vs "cheating for the love of the game").

[@theodorebeasley7015]

I find that for me, a lot of “cheating” I do in video games is really more of an accommodation- whether for my skill level, experience level, or ways I react to certain hurdles in games. Really, I like having options. In Minecraft for example, I might cheat back items when I die or turn on keep inventory. I might even cheat in certain enchanted items before being able to craft them because they enhance my comfortability with the game. They make me feel safer. Can that be seen as cheating? Of course! And that’s a valid opinion, but I’m also not uploading videos claiming to not be cheating the system in some way. I am totally open with the idea that not everyone plays the way I do. But that’s just how I enjoy my playtime. Consider Kirby and the Forgotten Land. This game has a setting which enables you to have higher health levels and beat bosses with more ease. Now, that could absolutely be considered “cheating” and I think that’s valid. But as someone who never got to play video games as a kid, never had the opportunity of simply enjoying the video game experience, these types of features make gaming more accessible. They allow people of any experience level, and people who want to beat a game at their current ability level, to complete games. There’s so many facets to this philosophy of “cheating” in video games. Love the video, Jenna.

[@justsomerobloxvids1791]

"If you leave a cheat long enough, it becomes part of the culture of the game." *cries in team fortress 2* to be perfectly honest i'm surprised that there was absolutely no mention of team fortress 2. they mentioned team fortress, but not 2, even after #savetf2 started happening.

[@gamegyro56]

Great video! There's so much about this topic. Like: * readily-available trainers, which have their own digital history as part of the cracking scene, but alone function the exact same way as cheats * console commands open in The Sims and Skyrim * micro-transactions, which often do the same as cheats in older games. But unlike arcade game cheating, you also have to pay a full game price. So this leads to cases like Shadow of War and Battlefront 2, where even the company removes the pay-to-cheat structure.

[@wdfinbllngsly]

Great video! I personally just play single player games and cheating is just how I enjoy playing. I have saves where I don't cheat but I also have saves where I do.

[@LeviathanDesigner]

The last line just broke my heart in a million pieces "And nobody is cheating just for the love of the game". Amazing video.

[@r4bbitdragon]

The ability to patch games now is probably also part of this discussion. Devs would try to quash glitches after release like the Master Ball one you talk about, imagine if a day one patch had removed the Konami code from Gradius?

[@sebastianarmstrong5726]

I love looking at all the cheats and glitches used in speedrunning especially. The pokemon diamond/pearl remakes have essentially been blown wide open w/ out of bounds glitches, some weird inventory manipulation and even counting the number of times a character blinks to guarantee a shiny.

[@orangesilver8]

I feel like part of why cheating isn't as fun to me now is that having just infinite stuff isn't as fun anymore. It's not new and playing around with them gets old fast. Like if I'm playing Pokemon and trying to catch all of them, I don't want to use infinite master balls because that's making it too easy so it's not as fun. Now possibly if I was playing pokemon and didn't care about the catching challenge, but maybe I just wanted to use zapdos but hated how difficult it is to catch, it would make sense to use a cheat to catch it. Because that's not compromising the part I care about. But like, unlimited rare candies and master balls destroys most challenges in the game and reduces it to like, just the story? Which isn't particularly interesting so I don't see much reason to that.

[@melonrue]

That's valid! I have no interest in cheating/exploits in games like Stardew Valley or Pokemon, since I feel it'd "ruin the experience" for myself. That said, I think having that option to do so is great! Whether it's because it makes a grindy or difficult game more enjoyable, or just because it's fun to go on a power trip, in single-player contexts and a limited subset of cooperative multiplayer games, cheating, exploits and secrets feel like fair game to me. In some senses, mods are "advanced cheating" that modifies the game to make it more like what you want it to be - whether that be extraordinarily difficult, increased realism, or a dedicated location for all your skillbuilding needs.

[@HobbitTanoo]

Great vid! Loving this longer format.

[@theoc6511]

punkbuster as an anticheat just sounds like a cheating software

[@LiveWire937]

Comparing cheating in singleplayer games to cheating in online competitive games is an apples to oranges argument. Cheating in singleplayer games is fun. It has always been fun, and it always will be. Hell, cheating in *cooperative* multiplayer games is even more fun. the only thing that puts a real damper on cheating is when someone else's experience is ruined in the process. That only happens in competitive play.

[@assailant8722]

One of my favorite memories of childhood was getting an Action Replay and watching cheat code videos online for my Pokémon Diamond and getting the ability to turn all pokeballs into Master Balls and capture other trainers Pokémon and walk through walls and all that jazz. It felt like I was getting away with something, but it was ultimately harmless. Or buying a cheat code book and discovering that Skate 3 had a cheat code that turned all pedestrians into zombies that you could fight with your skateboard. Those were the good old days. When I get around to finally making that game I keep telling myself I’ll make one day, I’m definitely adding cheat codes.

[@ambermiller3751]

This is so good!! I do remember looking at game magazines and seeing if there was anything cool I could figure out how to do or watching my friends play Sims and put in cheat codes, lol.

[@NateSearson]

Still gonna cheat for that bloody red cabbage seed in Stardew

[@martinperon4576]

I like that cheats (some of which are features implemented by devs to help during testing) are back in "accessibility" options. I think the Achievement Era is over, it's safe to just play and enjoy games how we want to, without feeling that we "cheated not the game, but ourselves"! xD Now, that won't beat using the Konami code or memorizing the GTA cheats, but that's what nostalgia is for!

[@marinemanaphy101]

Playing Legends: Arceus, I never really felt like I would use an Action Replay even if it could’ve given me the same value as when I used it in DPPl. Back then, it felt essential because otherwise I would run into walls in the game where it stopped being entertaining - especially as someone who literally would never be able to encounter the mythical pokémon without it because I don’t live somewhere that they’re distributed physically. In Arceus, that’s just not really a thing in the same way, and even if it was, it’s cheaper and easier now to just pay someone on ebay $10 to give you all the mythical pokémon than it is to try to cheat to get them. For me, cheating was only ever really for making it feel more fair - in Pokémon, that meant balancing for the fact that I couldn’t get Shaymin legitimately in Diamond, so I’d Action Replay Oak’s Letter into the game. In BDSP, it was released to everyone, and in Legends, Shaymin’s just… there. I’d use AR to get generation-exclusive pokémon or pokémon from older generations, because I couldn’t afford to buy nine different games to collect every single pokémon on multiple consoles, and didn’t really have any friends who played pokémon. Today, it’s just not as necessary because trading is easier and more accessible. Pokémon succeeded (imo) in making that kind of cheating less valuable by just becoming more accessible and less exclusionary. It’s still not perfect or anything, but it’s a step up imo.

[@MiseFreisin]

Honestly, some of the Legends boss battles (not the actual Pokémon battles) were rough as hell and I only got through them by "cheating" - starting from the last phase rather than the beginning, which would never have been an option back in the day. If there had been an infinite health cheat for those bits, I probably would have taken it, just because it wasn't fun anymore. There are better and more fun things to do in the game.

[@katherinehemken5544]

8:18 Hold on there! In Gen 1, it is impossible to catch Rhyhorn using a Master Ball gained through the Missingno. glitch. In Pokémon Red and Blue, Rhyhorn can only be encountered in the Safari Zone, where only Safari Balls are usable. Rhyhorn cannot even be encountered through said glitch in Red and Blue. In Pokémon Yellow, Rhyhorn can be encountered in Cerulean Cave, but the Missingno. glitch has been removed in that game.

[@hollandscottthomas]

I always really appreciated Goldeneye 64's approach to cheating: achieve a set of conditions on a specific level with difficulty/objective/time constraints and you would unlock a cheat code in a list that you could then flip on or off. So it was easy enough for anyone to have paintball or DK mode, but invisibility was REALLY tough to unlock.

[@ILoveEvadingTax]

lol see I kinda disliked that because unless your big brother had already unlocked all the content you still had to work hard for a cheat that you didn't really want at the end of it. Fine if you're an adult, play the game properly but a kid just wants to have fun

[@Russianbluez]

very good video, loving that people are bringing up good points about accessibility and how cheating can help people get their full bang for their buck. but most importantly, JENNA WHERED YOU GET YOUR SHIRT FROM

[@thefollowingisatest4579]

I'm loving that a distinct aspect of Jenna's style appears to be the pithy turn to camera. Though every time I still expected "or you think me maaad hehe".

[@Bumblebeena]

Just let people play how they want if it doesn’t impact your gaming. Accessibility mods and cheats open up gaming to even more people so I’m all for them.

[@Bumblebeena]

@@LB-yg2br But if the individual doesn’t want to overcome the challenge the same way as you do, and it doesn’t affect your gaming then why do you care? Maybe they want to listen to the soundtrack, see the story through or just vibe with the artwork.

[@majormushu]

One of my favorite cheat code stories is that Sly Cooper and the Thevius Raccoonus which came out in 2002 on the PS2 has cheat codes that weren't discovered until 2020, 18 years after release. The speedrunning community was messing around with the files and found a bunch of inputs that made the game do certain things that nobody ever knew about. Prior to 2020 there was only 1 cheat code commonly known and it was to reset the level you were on in case you bugged out or got caught in a cutscene you didn't want to watch but now we know how to put on invincibility, auto-grab bottles, get every ability, unlock every level, etc just with cheats.

[@nschwerte8324]

I never had fun as a kid when I cheated. I thought I want that lvl 100 Sumpex, but then once I had it i just bulldozed through the game and didnt have any fun

[@avawobbles]

I adore the captions describing the music in this video

[@caligulacorday]

that image of a cat legal team does not have the intended effect when you`re currently in the middle of a reread of maus 🙃

[@polygon]

oh good god

[@CrplCon]

I vaguely remember playing Diablo online for about a small part of one evening and getting wiped out almost instantly at every opportunity. I only vaguely remember because I stopped playing it that same day and never went back. It was EXTREMELY frustrating. I would have loved having a way to protect myself with a 'feature.' Thanks for these videos. Amazingly well though-out and informative. You have a new subscriber.

[@Kaphotics]

17:51 - "Even third party developers won't make hacks or cheats for Pokémon Arceus. Cheating online is just too big a business to make obscure little titles like this pretty mainstream Pokémon game worth hacking. And nobody is cheating just for the love of the game." PKHeX: am I a joke to you?

[@owenw.1643]

the way cheating is handled in stardew valley is one of my all-time favorites. eric barone obviously cares so much about that his players are having FUN and thats something more game developers need to remember!!!!!!!!

[@polygon]

I haven't heard about Stardew cheats! I'm glad to hear they're fun. - Simone

[@shinythingster]

I exclusively play Bethesda games with godmode on. I hate carry limits and inventory management and I love collecting stuff-- for me most of the fun of those games is the exploration and finding a cool thing at the end of a dungeon anyway, not "getting good". The experience of dying over and over again doesn't enhance the gameplay for me in any way, so being able to just... turn that off? That's why I still boot up Skyrim every now and then however many billions of years after release it is by now. Turn on godmode, see how many melons you can find and find out if you can dump them all inside Nazeem's house at once without your game crashing. That's the REAL Bethesda experience. Achieve CHIM (Cheating Happens In Multiplayer).

[@TheseastarTV]

Polygon has gotten really interesting lately, loving all these interesting angles