Nobody likes a cheater when it comes to online and multiplayer games. Certain game communities have been absolutely destroyed and ripped apart due to this behavior, and it's something that developers constantly struggle with taking care of and patching.
However, cheating in single-player games is something a little different. Is it really so bad? Some developers think so, even to the degree that they'll actually ship their title with in-game measures that will punish or torture the player for doing something they don't exactly approve of. But hey, why's it in the game, then?
In this list, I've put together nine of the most savage ways that games of all kinds have punished players who cheat the system. Let's check it out.
Banjo-Kazooie (N64) -- Grunty Deletes Your Game
In Treasure Trove Cove, Bottles runs a sandcastle that you can enter and use as an area to put in cheat codes. However, there are some codes that skip levels and alter the game in ways that Grunty really doesn't like. If you put in three cheat codes like this, your saved game will be completely erased.
Grunty and Bottles both warn you about this multiple times, but it's kind of like your mother telling you to do something again and you doing it again just to see what happens… You don't think the developers are actually going to code a way for Grunty to delete your file, right? Think again.
H1Z1 (PC) -- Public Apology Videos
H1Z1 had a major cheating problem, especially with ESP (seeing players through walls) and aimbots -- and it has since been cleaned up a lot.
But at the time, it was adversely impacting the community. So John Smedley, a gaming executive working with H1Z1, took action and posted the following in a series of tweets:
Dear cheaters who got banned. Many of you are emailing me, apologizing and admitting it. Thank you. However… You're doing it wrong. If you want us to even consider your apology, a public YouTube apology is necessary. No personal information please. Email me the link and I will tweet it. Please be sure not to reveal any info. That's important. Not trying to do anything other than highlight a serious issue.
Surprisingly enough, many people obliged. There were three videos in particular that were highlighted and managed to get unbans out of Smedley, but they've all since been deleted or set as private on YouTube. They're not floating around on the web anymore, but publicly shaming cheaters and requiring them to send video-form apologies is taking it to another level.
Guild Wars 2 (PC) -- Stripped, Executed, and Banned
In 2015, there was a notorious Guild Wars 2 hacker, DarkSide, who was known to use exploits that allowed him to teleport around the world and deal ridiculous damage to players, withstand attacks using godmode, and more. The hacker was so brazen and arrogant that he went as far as to record himself performing these cheats and it eventually got the attention of ArenaNet's Head of Security at the time, Chris Clearly.
Clearly decided he'd take control of DarkSide's account, strip him down to his underwear, walk him to one of the highest points in a populated city in-game, and force him to jump to his death. The act was witnessed by thousands and it was even recorded. After the incident, Clearly deleted all of DarkSide's characters and permanently banned his multiple accounts.
Slender: The Arrival (PC) -- Cheaters Get a Scare
Horror games are an interesting thing. You play them to get scared, right? However, there was a large number of people playing Slender: The Arrival and using an in-game glitch to go outside of the game's boundaries and therefore avoid Slenderman. Doesn't that kind of go against the entire reason you play the game?
Nevertheless, developers caught on quickly and the game was changed so that using this glitch would instantly kill the player. However, you get one last scare before death, and it's the exact thing that you're trying to glitch away from.
Donkey Kong 64 (N64) -- Completely Unplayable
Cheating in Donkey Kong 64 will cause major issues with your game — and not the hilarious corruption in the header video — among other atrocities.
Using the GameShark to perform certain cheats in Donkey Kong 64 will corrupt the game and cause all sorts of bizarre things to happen. You might fall through the ground randomly or the game may invert colors. That's not all, though. You won't be able to pick up any items and you'll die from a single hit for the rest of the game.
Sounds hilarious right? It is, until you realize that resetting the game doesn't fix it. Your game is corrupted like this permanently. Isn't that a little extreme?
The Sims 4 (PC) -- Pirates Get Pixels
EA went a step further with cheaters in The Sims 4 and decided that not only should they face shameful punishments, but pirates should, too.
Copies of The Sims 4 that were detected as being pirated—as in stolen, illegally torrented, etc.—get to experience the entire game through migraine-inducing levels of pixelation that make the game practically unplayable.
This stunt led to dozens of pirates desperately begging for help all across forums, asking how they can remove this pixelated filter from their game. Unbeknownst to them, it was EA's way of having them make an ass out of themselves. Pirates all around the Internet were embarrassing themselves as they begged for a fix. Pirates never prosper!
Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (PS3/Xbox 360) -- Ragequitters Put Where They Belong
The Marvel vs. Capcom franchise has many fantastic games, like the one you see in the video above. However, Marvel v. Capcom 3 showcased the series' first attempt at online play. The developers had the foresight of knowing how salty the fighting game community could be, though.
MvC 3 was plagued with players who would lose a match and then quickly disconnect from Xbox Live to avoid getting a loss on their record. What they didn't know is that all of their ragequits were being secretly tracked, and if the game detected that you were quitting an unnatural amount of times, then you'd be put into a lower-priority queue, one where you'd only be able to find matches against other players like you.
MvC 3 was pitting quitters against each other without them even knowing it. It made for a better gaming experience for players with a little bit of honor, and it put these cowards exactly where they should be — surrounded and annoyed by people just like themselves.
Tomb Raider II (PlayStation) -- Exploding Lara
In the original Tomb Raider on the PlayStation, there was a cheat code that would let you unlock every weapon in the game. That same cheat code doesn't do the same thing in Tomb Raider II, though. As a matter of fact, it causes Lara Croft to explode into a bunch of different pieces and your game will end.
As would-be cheaters found out about this, rumors began to circulate online and trolls began trolling. Message boards were being spammed with gossip that there was a cheat code that would allow you to see Lara Croft nude in Tomb Raider II, but of course, it was… this.
The Witcher 3 (PC) -- Revenge of the Cows
When The Witcher 3 first launched, there was a very simple strategy to becoming extremely wealthy. You'd go to a particular field in-game and kill and skin the cows, meditate to fast-forward time, and then repeat the process. Doing this for hours would rack you up a fortune that no one should be able to come up with so quickly.
Developers caught on, though, and they added a special mob spawn to the field that would surprise and threaten anyone using this technique. Low-level players wouldn't be able to handle it at all, and others may be too lazy and relaxed from repeating this process over and over to expect it. Deaths happened and this exploit slowly died, too.
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Which punishment do you think was most savage? Want to share any that didn't make the list? Leave me a message in the comments below and I'll check it out!
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Published: Jun 28, 2017 09:15 am