He who cheats wins?
Well, it goes without saying that anyone who plays multiplayer games will have a competitive streak. It’s going to be embedded in their nature to want to win. When you haven’t got the natural videogame skills to beat other players, it’s certainly going to be a spontaneous reaction for many people to find a shortcut, anything so they can win the game and make themselves feel better and reassure themselves that they’re not a failure.Cheating will always happen because we are conditioned from an early age, through education, media and even our own families, to believe that it’s the winners who are important in life, no-one knows or cares about who comes second. Second place wins nothing. Even some athletes cheat to win because they know they’re never going to naturally be the best in the world.
Should we really bear malice towards these people, then? Aren’t they just reacting in the way that most people will naturally do in order to win? He who cheats wins, right?
The thing is, we don’t mind a cheat who cheats himself to get to the end of a single player game or uses a specific camping spot in a multiplayer map time and time again because they feel comfortable with it. That’s not cheating as far as we’re concerned. They're just people cheating themselves out of the full videogame experience.
What we hate is the cheating that ruins the whole experience for others. In recent times, we’ve been sick to the back teeth with players in UEFA 2008 quitting matches when we go 2-0 up. They’ll do this in the 90th minute, making the whole match absolutely pointless. It’s infuriating.
The problem with ‘quitters’ and cheating is so bad in some games that they really aren’t even worth playing unless you’re:
a) A cheater or quitter yourself or
b) You play only with people you know.
There’s nothing wrong with using walkthroughs, buying guides, spawn-killing (sometimes) or even taking up the same sniper spot again and again; that's using the game to your advantage. But blatantly cheating and ruining it for everyone else? That's the lowest of the low.
Continued overleaf
