Glitches and exploits are part of the game, so you can use them. Or can you? Perhaps it ruins the fun of the game forever.

The glitch, this shy and charming little error, is often found here in its natural habitat, the video game. Often amusing to watch, this quirky creature entertains its viewer. If you approach it cautiously, it maintains its humorous, lively appearance. However, if you invade its habitat, the tables turn. The amusing digital pastime reveals itself, through the help of greedy players, as an exploit.

But joking aside. Glitches, bugs, and exploits are as old as their habitat. Hardly a game where there isn’t a hole in the texture somewhere, polygons have twisted, or a background calculation doesn’t work as the developer intended. Even in one of my early favorite games, Mega lo Mania for the Amiga 500, there were exploits.

Back then, it became clear what consequences the exploitation of such a bug could have on my personal enjoyment of the game. Of course, I won’t give any hints on how it was done, but in Mega lo Mania, you could save your troops from destruction. And, who would have thought, this possibility quickly spread on the playground among the interested parties.

Lost fun in Doom and Mega lo Mania due to cheating

In the coming days, the success reports surged, and a week later, all my friends had “successfully” completed the nine levels of the game. So did I. Since that moment, I have never played Mega lo Mania again. Today, I have the feeling that I did not actually finish the game and never completed it. Morally, I did not question this situation back then.

The key combination “idkfa” accompanied me in my youth; otherwise, I probably wouldn’t still remember it by heart today. Because idkfa is an almost legendary cheat code for the first Doom game. It allowed all weapons and keys to be unlocked. In retrospect, the game entertained me better and for longer without a cheat. Ultimately, every game that allowed me to enter God mode with the help of a cheat quickly lost its appeal. But back then, there were already large community sites where cheats and save states could be exchanged.

Unfortunately, the little beloved glitch that once ruined Mega lo Mania for me has grown up and is increasingly appearing in multiplayer games. It is often no longer in my decision whether I want to deprive myself of the gaming pleasure deliberately. These decisions are now made by more unethical players.

It’s a bit like someone running into the Harry Potter fan club and yelling “Dumbledore dies on page 631!” No crime, but certainly against club rules and not something that would usually be described as “socially acceptable”.

Exploiting bugs is part of everyday life in MMOs

Nowadays, unfortunately, it is not even considered a minor offense to exploit bugs in gameplay. En masse, artifact power in WoW is unfairly obtained, in Division, the Bullet King is beaten like a piñata, and in Overwatch, Reaper jumps into the fray even before the match starts. This is more than just annoying, but fortunately, is often quickly addressed by the respective developers.

It becomes really uncomfortable, however, when it is already considered standard in instances to exploit bugs. In Guild Wars 2, for example, it was common practice to circumvent a large part of the trash mobs in the instance Twilight Garden. That it often took longer than mowing down the few followers of the Nightmare Court was almost irrelevant.

There was always an “elite” player who had to show that he could circumvent the game mechanics. Those who didn’t want to had to endure being called noobs and beginners in extreme cases. For me, this was once the reason to look for a guild that explicitly valued not supporting such behavior. The selection of corresponding guilds was shockingly small.

Honesty is rarely rewarded in computer games today. Players who unfairly gain advantages seldom face harsh consequences. Temporary game bans and the revocation of illegitimate progress, often, the penalties are not much harsher. Rewarding honest players, on the other hand, is technically probably not very easy to implement.

Those who cheat to win have already lost

The motivation to use such errors is often simply to be “better” than other players in online games. But isn’t it just like in Doom? Doesn’t the game lose its appeal? And can you still appreciate your “own” performance, what you’ve achieved?

For me, this question does not arise, because I don’t want to take away the pleasure of the game from myself or others. But often I hear justifications like the developers should ensure that such gaps don’t occur. And at this point, it becomes clear that it is much more than just a mistake in the virtual world; it is a societal problem.

The shoe man had a nice comparison in the comments recently. Essentially: Knowing about an exploit and therefore using it because you know about it is somewhat like robbing a supermarket because you’ve read that others already robbed the market and escaped with the loot. The logical consequence would be that we all meet in front of the supermarket tonight with ski masks.

The problem is not the games, but us, the players

It is not necessarily the state’s job to make supermarkets “raid-proof”. Banks and supermarkets are always trying to, but absolute security will never be achieved. Here, society is called upon to create a moral environment in which robberies are not tolerated.

Ultimately, in my view, misconduct should not be justified by developers’ errors in computer games; each player is truly only responsible for his own actions.

This can only mean: do not exploit. To make users aware that you do not agree with their actions, and to promptly inform developers about corresponding vulnerabilities. This sounds moral, if not even naive. Black sheep will probably not be prevented. Those who want to cheat will always find a way. But perhaps we all can keep the enjoyment of the game a little longer than I did back in Mega lo Mania if we don’t throw all our moral values out the window when dealing with exploits.

What do you think? Do you have a moral code that you follow in multiplayer games?

This text comes from our reader Erzkanzler. You can find more by Erzkanzler on his blog.

In Overwatch, numerous cheaters were recently banned – some with very funny names.

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