NO QUARTER FOR CHEATERS // delusions of grandeur
With the recent release of Pokemon GO, there was a torrent of sites which helped to pinpoint Pokemon locations - PokeRadar, PokeVision - and the like. These took advantage of the readable data from the app, and spun it to people’s advantage. It was helpful, if not exactly that Niantic had intended, and when Niantic asked them to close the door on their services, most obliged.
I recently had a colleague pick up Pokemon GO, and go HARD at it for a few weeks. When PokeVision shut down, his insatiable thirst to catch them all led him from the grey zone of server pinging to the dark zone of cheats and exploits. Sitting at his PC hacking the geo location of his phone, his avatar traveled the world - spinning PokeStops and collecting region locked Pokemon all while his stubby little feet were firmly planted on his bedroom floor.
Here’s the rub of it, when all came said and done, he was extremely proud of this achievement. He rubbed his belly and gloated about what a PokeMaster he was, what a master collector he was, and how his Pokemon could ravage any gym he desired. And you know what? Petty as this makes me sound, it makes me furious. But hear me out.
First off, I will confess that I am a stickler for the rules. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in efficiency - I will use every tool at my disposal to produce the highest quality and quickest result possible. But, for instance, when everyone in my country was off playing Pokemon GO through mirrored versions before the official release, I was silently waiting for the real download. I did this because I didn’t want to exacerbate the server problems already occurring in other places, and also because the server problems in the pre-release version in my own country appeared non-enjoyable.
In reality, though, when it comes to games - which are primarily a form of entertainment, not a life or death situation - I believe everyone is entitled to play a game the way they want to maximize their entertainment… as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else. Want to blaze through that latest RPG with invincibility or on Easy mode? Sure, why not. There’s a variety of reason’s one might want to do this: they might not have enough time, they might be interested in the story but not the gameplay, or they might just plain suck at this kind of game. All of these are valid reasons for wanting to take the easy road out, and I’m sure as heck not going to stop you, or even judge you for it. But if you’re going to do it - don’t gloat about it. I’ve certainly cheesed my way through single player games just to see what happens at the end, but I don’t have any delusions that it made me a skilled gamer. I did it for an experience, and I took a shortcut through it, for whatever reason. There’s no respect for cheating. Don’t expect it.
The waters become murkier even when games involve other people. If you cheat at a multiplayer game - whether it’s an aimbot for an FPS, a gold farming bot for an RPG, or exploiting a hack so you can level up fast and take people’s gyms, you are intentionally stacking the deck in your favour in a way that it was never intended to be stacked, and other people’s enjoyment is being reduced by it. This might get you ahead, but it certainly won’t get you respect. You are the equivalent of doping in the Olympics, and you deserve to be booed from the stands.
In the end, people will continue to cheat their way through games and through life, and they will continue to feel entitled to do so. I hope these people get the banhammer every single time. But in the meantime, don’t expect my respect. You’re not awesome because you cheated your way to the top, you’re just another lame duck with delusions of grandeur.