We here at Kinda Whatevs have been known to discuss gaming and gaming culture from time to time. Today I plan on tapping a relatively controversial (though less than say, systemic sexism) topic. Yes, today we're going to discuss exploitation, and not in the conventional sense you'd be likely to see here. I'm not going to talk about how we as gamers are being reamed by certain profit models, or how games exacerbate underlying stereotypes and body image issues. No, today its personal. Today we're talking about cheating.
I am a card carrying Video Game Cheater. I cut my teeth on Game Genie back in the day, spent some time voiding warranties with a Game Shark, and have spent more hours than I care to admit to getting various "Mods" to play nicely together in order to tailor my gaming experience to my design. And that's all it has ever been; me trying to get the most out of my games. There are endless, vile arguments in forums all over the webs about the evils of cheating in video games, and some of the points raised are quite valid. If you cheat in an online game against people who are not cheated, you are a cuntwaffle and you deserve the ban that is probably coming to you. If you cheat in a way that actually destroys your game, well fuck, guess you shouldn't have fucking done that. Be more careful next time. My issue comes from the fact that, honestly most games are kind of insufferable to me without at least a little bit of modification. A little bit of god mode goes a long way towards making that psycho with a chainsaw feel like the vindication I crave. I will freely admit that some of the time my desire to cheat is a blatant power fantasy, but that's what escapism is fucking for. I don't, as my previous comments might imply, cheat on games where there are other people who aren't or might not be cheating. The idea of playing out the aforementioned power fantasy on other actual people is spectacularly shitty, that's how social conservatives happen. But there is nary a single player game out there that I haven't run through the paces of Cheat Engine or modded beyond recognition.
I do it for fun. Many of my friends and I have cheated the hell out of games we loved and grown to love them even more with the cheats. Most cheats are harmless as long as you aren't a dick. Now, I realize this is a Rant Fantastique at this point but I do have a reason for it. Recently, Bioware removed an apparently stable and very, very fucking useful exploit from Dragon Age: Inquisition. The exploit in question was item duplication, under specified, reasonable conditions. It allowed players to acquire good gear and made the economy in the game somewhat more reasonable. It had also been available in every DA game in almost exactly the same form. It was removed. That means that it had been intentionally implemented, as evidenced by the fact that they continued to fucking include it, and then patched out.
This bugs the hell out of me, and I realize that it's a little thing but cheating at games is a great joy to me and many other players. I'm being long winded here but I feel like this is on some level an issue of other people dictating how I'm allowed to enjoy myself and that is supremely fuckered.
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