Video Game Cheating... a Father’s Dilemma

Some of my earliest memories include what is now called "The Konami Code” in the NES game Contra:  up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A.  It was originally inserted into the super hard game Gradius by developer Kazuhisa Hashimoto, who felt he couldn’t finish the game himself without the benefit of the code’s extra 30 lives!

I also spent my childhood getting seemingly unlimited lives at the end of level 3-1 on Super Mario Bros (cause I wasn’t very good at the game), which brings up an important point… are tricks like that cheating? Are warp zones cheating?  Am I setting a bad example by showing a 6 year old daughter how to save the princess by warp zoning there, or should she work for it? Should I show my daughter the 3-1 extra lives "trick"?  Is it even a cheat?

 
Let’s look at the psychology and ethics of game cheating.  According to Mia Consalvo, author of Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames, there are three different classes gamers can be when it comes to cheating:

Purist:  A purist views a game entirely as a one-person effort.  All outside help, including codes, hacks, even official strategy guides compromises their ethics and are considered cheating.  To the purist, the Konami Code is a big no no, even if it has become a cultural phenomenon.

Code is Law:  These players give more leeway.  For them, strategy guides are perfectly reasonable, as they do not affect the code of the game.  However, cheat codes, as they affect the game as developers intended it to be played, and obviously hacking, would be out of the question.  “Code is Law” can get a bit foggy for me, since a developer intended for the Konami Code to exist, as he couldn’t beat the game without it and developers clearly intended for the warp zones to be found by crafty players.  Does this still violate the “Code is Law?”  I’m not so sure.

You Can Only Cheat Another Player: For these players, it isn’t about the cheating.  Walkthroughs, strategy guides, cheat codes, hacks…they can all be used.  What matters more is deceiving another player, such as stealing an item from another player in World of Warcraft.

With the Konami Code, Warp Zone’s, and other tricks so deeply rooted in gaming culture, cheating has become a concern for modern video and mobile game development.  Valve, the company that created Portal, has a no tolerance policy when it comes to cheating online.  Even the lines of what defines cheating have been blurred.  I’m not even sure really where I fall in the cheating classes…perhaps between “Code is Law” and “You Can Only Cheat Another Player.”

I want my daughter to earn Princess Toadstool’s respect, to bask in the glory of truly beating a Mario game for all its complexities on her own merit.  However, if she chooses to use a Warp Zone there, or get Unlimited 1-Ups, that’s up to her…after all, when you’re the player, you can only cheat yourself, right?