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Unethical Website of the Month December 2005
Cheatcodes
Once your children begin to tire of the Xbox or PlayStation games you bought them for Christmas, they will probably visit Cheatcodes.com, a popular web site that provides, as one might expect, cheat codes.
Cheat codes are secret keys to unlocking bonus features on the latest video games. One cheat code may give your warrior player in a battle game a new weapon or power without you having to acquire the necessary amount of experience the rules of the game make a prerequisite for those enhancements. Other cheat codes allow players to find new game variations within game programs, or give them different graphic options. One of the major league baseball simulations has a cheat code that resurrects dozens of great players from the past, who can beef up the rosters of present day teams.
The codes are called "cheat codes" because they bypass the official rules. Still, it would be hard to argue that using them really constitutes true cheating as the word is usually used by the same people who make the games create the codes, and they are a very effective marketing device. Discovering and employing the codes is a game within each game, with devoted players passing them along to fellow players. Cheat codes keep the games fresh and interesting. They are fun, and nobody is hurt, because nobody is being "cheated" except perhaps game itself.
The game itself, of course, doesn't care.
The problem is that the use of cheat codes mirrors the process of real cheating in every
other respect. The codes allow players to find solutions to problems without having to
work them out the hard way, according to the rules. The practice is identical to acquiring
questions and answers in advance of an important exam, or reading an opposing football
team's playbook to gain the edge before a bid game. Cheat codes, defensible as they are in
their own context, are seductive advertisements for the benefits of real cheating. They are
simulated cheating. And while they haven't been around long enough for there to be any
data on it, cheat codes almost certainly create more cheaters, with less compunction about
cheating.
Cheat codes exist for most video games, including the "E" and "T" rated games designed for teens and younger. Just try to explain to an 11 year-old why it is OK to find a "secret" code that allows you to pick up thousands of unearned points on a video game, but wrong to use bootleg quiz answers to pick up unearned points on a science test. I have, and the success of my efforts is very much in doubt. It is not surprising that the existence of "good" cheating poses a serious obstacle to making the case that all cheating is wrong.
What is the solution? The Scoreboard is opposed to using terminology to hide the nature of conduct or emphasize just one aspect of a complex issue, but if cheat codes are not really cheating, then it would be helpful to call them something else. Call them "back doors," perhaps, or "secret access"…anything that doesn't imply wrongdoing. But that is not going to happen, because the term is entrenched in the gaming culture.
The only other remedy, short of having the confusing and futile "good cheating/bad cheating" discussion I just had with my son, is to forbid children from using cheat codes in their video games to reinforce the concept that all cheating is wrong. Unfortunately, using conduct called cheating that is neither true cheating nor wrong to make this point is of dubious legitimacy.
I'm not sure there is a good way out of this mess, but I'm still looking. Meanwhile, thanks for nothing, Cheatcodes.com. Do you have a cheat code for this dilemma?