Comment by lifeformed | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lifeformed | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> now it’s a necessity to play and level up in the game.

Wow. Have you considered just getting better, or quitting? This is a very selfish way of thinking. You are playing at everyone else's expense. It's such a huge waste of time when I play against cheaters in games. Sometimes I can still beat them because the players that resort to cheating are not very good. When cheaters aren't around, I have lots of fun.

Are you even having fun when you cheat? Imagine playing soccer and you bribe the judge to let you pick up the ball with your hands whenever you want. All the players stare in disbelief and disdain you, and some leave the game. Everyone boos you. You slowly walk into the goal uncontested. Wow, is that fun? Why do you keep coming back every day to do it? Why are you spending this time getting this referee into other people's games?

I know you probably don't care, but just remember that it's not "just a game". You are stealing the time of lots of people who are just trying to have an evening of fun with their friends after a hard days of work. It is antisocial behavior for your own monetary gain. How can you justify this to yourself?

> Are you even having fun when you cheat?

Depends on the game and on how you cheat. A game of true skill is ruined by cheating. Other types of games might not be. Some games deserve to be ruined by cheaters.

I've played games so ludicrously exploitative I don't even consider them games anymore. They were spending competitions. Yes, I was competing with whales to see who could pay the game company the biggest amount of money. I also fell for their little daily login habit forming tricks such as timer-based daily tasks. I was one of the poor bastards waking up at 4 AM to press buttons in a stupid fucking mobile game! It took me months and about a hundred dollars to realize the stupidity of it.

You bet I started cheating at that game. I admit it proudly. I did it out of spite. I wrote a bot to automate it for me. I don't even consider it cheating, to me it was a cure for my addiction. With the boring stuff automated away, the game was no longer punishing me for not logging in. I no longer felt guilty because I was missing out on meaningless virtual tasks. You know the funniest thing? My bot was statistically indistinguishable from a sufficiently addicted player. There's no way they could analyze some data and say "yeah, here's the one outlier". Everyone played like bots because they were all slaves of the timer.

In the end I never published my hack... But yeah, I had fun making it and I seriously hope it frustrated other people into quitting the game too. The less people suckered into these money sinks the better. Maybe if I had published my bot it would have significantly reduced the amount of addicted players out there, reducing their bottom line.

> Wow. Have you considered just getting better, or quitting? This is a very selfish way of thinking. You are playing at everyone else's expense.

I think 'hacking' is the real game parent is playing, the cat & mouse with the game developer likely gives them more rush than playing fair in the game itself.

Personally as a gamer I would like the game to be fair, free of cheaters but I've quit FPS games altogether not just because of cheating but It has become harder to smash the buttons due to accessibility issues, a double whammy.

Since then I've switched to RTS, specifically Factorio. It's a game which doesn't generalize game play and so I don't have to compete with physical effort; Play the game as I want without stress; Or should I say different kind of stress? Go to go...must keep the factory running.

But seriously, Thank you Factorio developers and community for building an inclusive game. As for hackers, feel free to put your efforts in building those sweet mods!

Not the parent, but the situation you described is not fun. But say, I can magically stretch my legs? Or make players not solid for a moment? That's magic from Harry Potter and that's fun.

Fun is making a computer do stuff using your skills which it was not originally mandated to do.

Then there is meta game of playing against other wizards of the world.

However, I dispise pair exploits and unskilled players using paid exploits. That's not magic.

> But say, I can magically stretch my legs? Or make players not solid for a moment? That's magic from Harry Potter and that's fun.

Sure, that's fun if you're playing by yourself or if it is a part of the game. But if you're playing against other people who don't have that advantage, then how is that fun? Is it fun to cut in line ahead of others? Sure, maybe there's a thrill for a moment, but it should quickly become apparent that you're just taking advantage of other people.

If you want to play against the other wizards of the world but hurt innocent bystanders, then it's a very rude game to play.

> you're just taking advantage of other people

Plenty of people out there who get several kicks out of doing exactly that. They feel powerful.

It IS fun. However you are correct in assuming that its not justified. I originally meant to convey what other cheaters feel like when they break the rules of the program.

It is rude, it is unjust, it is not fair, but it is fun for those who execute their exploits and equally unfun and frustrating for the by-standing players.

>Fun is making a computer do stuff using your skills which it was not originally mandated to do.

It's still anti-social behavior. Does the degraded experience of honest players (i.e. victims) even factor in?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com