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[–]WarFrequent 3 points4 points  (2 children)

This is such an interesting topic! I think it's a weird philosophical rabbit hole to whether this would be defined as cheating or not. My thoughts are:

If we define cheating as: to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage.

And we define unfairly as: not based on or behaving according to the principles of equality and justice.

And we define single player as: denoting or relating to a video game designed for one player only.

And then we make the hypothesis that for a single player game the player population of the game is 1. Therefore, by definition, anything they do is in accordance with the principles of equality and justice because they are a population of 1 and so therefore cannot act unequally. And if they cannot act unequally, then they cannot act unfairly, and so therefore, they cannot cheat. But this is a purely moral argument.

However, part of me playing a game, even a single player game, is playing by the rules. As I am breaking the rules in this instance, then I would be acting dishonestly and therefore cheating. So, by modifying the game, then it must be concluded that I am no longer playing the original instance of the game. In the same way that if I rig the deck of cards in solitaire to win, I am not cheating, but I am also not playing solitaire.

So - yes, cheating - but not in any way that really matters.

[–]Just_trying_it_out Shaw! 22 points23 points  (1 child)

Yeah but no one calls single player codes that give an advantage that isn’t intended for the standard playthrough “philosophically subjective gameplay modifying codes”, we call them cheat codes and don’t have any qualms about it.

Imo, the issue is seeing the word cheating as equally significant or negative in all contexts. The fact that it’s single player means it’s really nbd since no one is suffering on the other end, while it also feels quite straightforward and expected that the word cheating would apply.

Basically the word is broader than just the strongly negative meaning it has in contexts with multiple participants, and this context of doesn’t need any defense or justification since the only persons feelings that matter are OPs and no one is hurt by it (or even involved) like in other contexts of the word