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Is using a strategy guide / FAQ cheating?
Judge John Hodgman covered this topic in his latest episode http://www.maximumfun.org/judge-john-hodgman/judge-john-hodgman-episode-22-tips-and-tricks-and-justice
The Joystiq poll on the issue is extremely close.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/03/judge-john-hodgman-decides-is-using-a-strategy-guide-cheatin/
I figure that makes for a pretty good thread.
The way I see it, cheating is defined as breaking the rules of a game. For example using a corked bat is directly contrary to the written rules of baseball. The source code of a video game IS the rules of that game. As long as you do not modify the game, or the hardware it runs on, you are not cheating. Using an aimbot in an FPS would be cheating because you have modified the game. Reading a FAQ that tells you the optimal build order for an RTS is not cheating.
There is a problem with this when it comes to games of knowledge. Take for example Carmen Sandiego. It's a knowledge game. It tests to see if you can tell where the criminal has escaped to based on clues about geography and history. You could just look up all the answers. You haven't modified the source code of the game, but in this case I think you have cheated. Since you bypassed the intent of the game, to test your skill of knowledge, with a test of research skills instead.
Then there is even an exception to the exception. Sometimes there is a game of knowledge, but the knowledge isn't the answer, it's the rules of the game. A lot of games keep their rules a secret. The best example is Pokemon with its EV/IV training nonsense. The rules of the game are not told to you anywhere other than FAQs. Is it cheating to read those FAQs even though they give you the hidden knowledge for a game that tests knowledge and effort? You're bypassing the knowledge part of the game, and now only testing effort and patience, that is true. However, I do not think it is cheating, under any circumstance, to read the rules of a game you are playing. Imagine playing a board game and being told it was cheating to read the rule book. That can't possibly be classified as cheating. If a game has to keep its rules secret to be worthwhile, that is an extreme failure of that game, and you probably shouldn't play it much, if at all.
Or what if we even use the example from the podcast of Mega Man X. Obviously using save states or game-genie type codes is cheating. But is it cheating to look up the best boss battle order? There is a small knowledge component to the game, but most of the game is about execution. I don't think it's cheating to look up the boss order, as the weaknesses of each boss are part of the rules of the game and shouldn't be kept secret. Yet, it was clearly the intent of the game's creators that the player should discover those rules through trial and error.
The Joystiq poll on the issue is extremely close.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/03/judge-john-hodgman-decides-is-using-a-strategy-guide-cheatin/
I figure that makes for a pretty good thread.
The way I see it, cheating is defined as breaking the rules of a game. For example using a corked bat is directly contrary to the written rules of baseball. The source code of a video game IS the rules of that game. As long as you do not modify the game, or the hardware it runs on, you are not cheating. Using an aimbot in an FPS would be cheating because you have modified the game. Reading a FAQ that tells you the optimal build order for an RTS is not cheating.
There is a problem with this when it comes to games of knowledge. Take for example Carmen Sandiego. It's a knowledge game. It tests to see if you can tell where the criminal has escaped to based on clues about geography and history. You could just look up all the answers. You haven't modified the source code of the game, but in this case I think you have cheated. Since you bypassed the intent of the game, to test your skill of knowledge, with a test of research skills instead.
Then there is even an exception to the exception. Sometimes there is a game of knowledge, but the knowledge isn't the answer, it's the rules of the game. A lot of games keep their rules a secret. The best example is Pokemon with its EV/IV training nonsense. The rules of the game are not told to you anywhere other than FAQs. Is it cheating to read those FAQs even though they give you the hidden knowledge for a game that tests knowledge and effort? You're bypassing the knowledge part of the game, and now only testing effort and patience, that is true. However, I do not think it is cheating, under any circumstance, to read the rules of a game you are playing. Imagine playing a board game and being told it was cheating to read the rule book. That can't possibly be classified as cheating. If a game has to keep its rules secret to be worthwhile, that is an extreme failure of that game, and you probably shouldn't play it much, if at all.
Or what if we even use the example from the podcast of Mega Man X. Obviously using save states or game-genie type codes is cheating. But is it cheating to look up the best boss battle order? There is a small knowledge component to the game, but most of the game is about execution. I don't think it's cheating to look up the boss order, as the weaknesses of each boss are part of the rules of the game and shouldn't be kept secret. Yet, it was clearly the intent of the game's creators that the player should discover those rules through trial and error.
Comments
I can't think of a multiplayer game where knowing things is going to help you but it isn't stuff to do with hidden mechanics they should have told you already.
If the knowledge doesn't affect the chance of success, but reduces the amount of time to success, that's not cheating.
There was in interesting case where someone took all the build times for Starcraft 2 buildings and had a program crunch the numbers which gave this utterly bizarre build order which was technically the fastest way to get to full army strength.
@Scott: I don't give a damn.
FAQs do not bring up questions of cheating, they bring up questions of how one experiences a game. The people voting for FAQs as cheating in that poll probably believe that someone who uses a guide to progress through a game is cheating themselves of the experience.
This goes back to the "video games as art" debate. FAQs don't break the rules, but they take away the sense of discovery and may cause you to play in ways the artist never intended. If you want to do that, then fine, it's your choice. I would compare it to watching a film in fullscreen pan & scan mode. You are slicing off part of the experience, but if you didn't care about that portion, then you got what you wanted.
As always, these sorts of things must be taken in moderation. There is never a right/wrong answer on whether someone should use an FAQ. If the game is largely crap with some nugget of goodness in the middle, the FAQ just helps you cut through the crap. Great. I would never use one for a game that I knew was of the highest quality, for the same reasons I wouldn't watch an Oscar picture in pan & scan.
The Starcraft thing was more interesting than anything else, it's like the absolute guide to Pacman's inner workings.
I think the opposite "Is knowledge cheating?" is actually true. A multiplayer game should in no way restrict you from knowing everything you need to play the game the best you can from the get go. You could make games where the Steam overlay will pop up straight to the wiki at the press of a button (Prima can roger themselves.).
Left4Dead 2 is a pretty bad offender in that I couldn't tell what the strengths of each of the weapons are without looking it up as I was too busy shooting zombies. E.g. The sand coloured assault rifles main strength is that it looses very little accuracy while moving.
If I break the rules of Monopoly outside of a game of Monopoly... wait, that's impossible. If you read the rules to a game like this, and consider that to be cheating, then you agree that the person in question was always playing the game from the moment of his birth.
Petals Around the Rose is similar.
I do like the idea of a game as a satire on that kind of secret society concept.
Games like that can still be fun. They're incomplete information games. Play them with your friends. Make up your own Mao and run it. I became a Potentate of the Rose back when I worked at IBM, and I still run the game for people.
Also, this relates very closely to games like Shadows over Camelot which have stupid and broken rules preventing certain communication, but no other communication. It's just really awful game design.
In a more extreme case: You should be able to see a game's ending without need for a guide.
However, in a game of puzzles or knowledge how do you make it difficult without making it obtuse? Portal could easily make a chamber very hard by hiding a button somewhere you won't notice it, but that's not legitimately hard is it? It's bullshit hard. But if a game is designed so well as to have no bullshit, how can it still ramp up the difficulty level?
I believe I pirated Poker Night at the Inventory on Youtube.
Do puzzles count as games?
Play on a small map, and I can actually chart the specific optimal solutions to several.
When an AI is involved it gets tricky. The AI could be viewed as an opposing player, making it a game. It could also be viewed as just a really complex and varied puzzle, since all existing AIs are deterministic in nature. I prefer the latter. Single player games are puzzles and/or simulations of actual games (counter-strike with bots).
Game-theory-precise, a "decision" is being made. But practically, the game is a puzzle. Add fog-of-war, making the game imperfect, and the "puzzle" aspect is heavily mitigated.
Anything higher would require brute computational force for even a weak solution in short order.