Forbes on cheating

Forbes.com, the "home page for the world's business leaders", has a special report on games, covering games of all kind. Besides the to-be-expected stupid article on WoW addiction, there are some interesting interviews, and an even more interesting article on video game cheating called Cheating is good for you.

Quote: "There are four major reasons why players cheat in a game: they're stuck, they want to play God, they are bored with the game, or they want to be a jerk. The overwhelming reason most players cheat is because they get stuck. Either the game is poorly designed, too hard, or the players are so inexperienced that they can't advance. A boss monster can't be beaten, or a puzzle solved, or the right direction found. In such situations, players face a choice: They either cheat or stop playing altogether.

That pretty much describes me. For example I really liked GTA Vice City as a game, for the excellent 80's Miami Vice atmosphere. But not being 18 any more I simply was too slow for some of the missions. If I hadn't used cheat codes to succeed, I would never have seen the second half of the game. I cheated to play.

But in a MMORPG there is a different way to get stuck. For example I got stuck in the original Everquest at level 42. It wasn't that I was totally unable to earn more experience points. But at the amount of time I was able to put into the game it took me *weeks* to advance one more level, and at the level I stopped the progress was so slow, it just seemed as if I wasn't advancing any more at all. World of Warcraft, where the time to level 60 is about a quarter of the time to 60 in the original Everquest, was just the right speed and length for me. Emphasis on the "for me". Because while I tend to side with the casual players, I do have 20 to 40 hours per week for playing MMOGs, and not everybody has that much time.

And that explains my attitude towards RMT, buying virtual gold for real world dollars. Yes, it is cheating. But cheating as alternative to quitting the game is acceptable, as long as it doesn't hurt other players. I'm opposed to duping gold, or using bots to farm it. But if some guy, Chinese or not, is manually playing WoW to sell the gold he farms, I don't mind. Because the chinese gold farmer is just doing exactly the same in-game activity that the gold buyer would have to do if he had the time for it. The gold buyer is taking a cheating shortcut, saving the time he would need to farm gold by paying somebody else to do it. Not only does that allow him to skip the more boring parts of the game, but the equipment he buys with the money also speeds up his leveling process, or gets him past challenges that he wouldn't have been able to handle without. And I think Blizzard is aware of that, which is why manual gold farmers and gold buyers aren't banned. The alternative would be the gold buyer being stuck and quitting WoW, and the gold farmer not opening up an account in the first place. Some people will always find cheating to be morally wrong, but this isn't the Olympics, and if harmless cheating is the only way to keep some players in the game, so be it.