Musings on God Mode and Other Pay-to-Win Items

(Congrats to Mage for winning the 149th Kentucky Derby. Sometimes you can't make these names up, and as I teased my questing buddy, "Alas there isn't a horse named Druid." "I would totally name a horse Warlock though," was her reply.)

Although I'm sure that some of my fellow bloggers --you know who you are-- would disagree, the original Nintendo Entertainment System came too late to draw my (or my friends') interest. It released in the US the Winter of my junior year of high school, and I was far more interested in what video games were at the local arcade girls, music, and cars than a new game console imported from Japan.* Still, my brother --who is 2.5 years younger than me-- was more in the NES' orbit. He managed to scrounge enough money together while he was in college to purchase one (~1990), and amassed quite a few games. Alas, my brother had issues finishing some of the games he had, so he eventually bit the bullet and bought a Game Genie to assist him in finishing those games.

You know, this.
From Wikipedia.

He once described what to me was a hilarious encounter with Nintendo customer support about a game he was playing (using said Game Genie) and was experiencing a technical issue in the game. "We don't support those devices," he was rather frostily told and then the customer support person hung up.

"What the hell did you expect?" I told him.

"I thought it was worth a try."

"Come on, it's a device designed to cheat at the games by providing you with god mode; why would they want to support anything like that?"

"I SAID it was worth a try."

I dropped my next bit of needling, because I could see I was getting under his skin. I was the more physically active of the two of us, and while my dad rode me hard on improving at the sports I played, he rode my brother even more for most definitely NOT being any good at sports.** So I'm sure that insecurity fed into the purchase of a Game Genie, and the more athletically inclined older brother teasing him about it didn't help.

***

I've been thinking about the humble Game Genie lately because of all of the so-called Pay to Win systems inherent in a lot of video games these days. I'm not talking about difficulty settings, because those were designed with varying skill and coordination abilities in mind, but paid systems that give a player a boost over their competitors (in a multiplayer game) or the environment  (in a single player game). The Game Genie proved that people were willing to pay for an "unfair" advantage over many NES games in the same fashion as that cheat code you could input into Sim City 2000 to get a ton of free money.***

Or, even older than that, people who used juiced dice or marked decks of cards to cheat at so-called games of chance. The difference here is that you're paying someone --whether a third party or the game company itself-- to provide the advantage.

Yes, this is a video designed with magic and

in mind, but cards such as this have been

used in the past by swindlers working

a crowd of people for easy money.

No, this sort of behavior didn't magically appear with mobile games or MMOs, and I think it's good to remember that apparently it is part of human nature to attempt to find advantages like that. And if it's not a part of human nature, then why is it so prevalent? Because it's learned behavior and somehow okay to seek every advantage possible, whether or not it is considered an unfair advantage?

And really, if it's considered okay to seek every advantage, is there really such a thing as an unfair advantage in any competition at all?

From imgflip.

I do have my own spirit of what I consider to be fair play,**** so I'm not speaking for myself, but I am playing devil's advocate here. Is it really an unfair advantage if the game company itself sells the advantage? That lack of morality and/or ethics surrounding cash shop items that impact a video game --whether mobile, single player, or multiplayer/MMO-- is what gives me a sick feeling in my stomach. If you are poor and you can't afford to pay for the extra items in a cash shop but your richer opponent can, how is that not a form of class privilege? When your inability to pay extra leaves you at a disadvantage against wealthier opponents, that certainly does imply that your social class affects your ability to win. The game company obviously has no ethical issues selling the products, given that they run the cash shop, and given the way companies are currently run it certainly seems like anything is ethical if it makes the investors happy. 

Still, in the end it falls on the players as the ultimate arbiter as to whether something is ethical or not. Whales notwithstanding, if nobody plays your game and nobody buys anything, a game company can't remain afloat for long. 

*To be perfectly honest, I struck out on the girls part. And my car, well... A 1976 Plymouth Volaré is not the definition of a cool car. More like the opposite, in fact.

The 1976 version of the Plymouth
Volaré and Dodge Aspen twins.
The Volaré is on top, and ours was
silver that was so faded that it was
repainted. And that repaint was faded!
From this article by Curbside Classics.

**Yes, Shintar, you can insert the "Gee Red, your parents were kind of shitty" comment right here. I totally and completely agree with you on this. That being said, my brother was on the chess team at his high school and holy crap could he wipe the floor with me. I spent hours unsuccessfully trying to beat him (and my dad), and I was understandably jealous of that sheer skill that seemed to have skipped me entirely.

***Hold down the SHIFT key and type "FUND", and you'll get something like $100,000. Maybe more, as I can't recall the exact amount. Or, if you wanted to be naughty, holding down the SHIFT key and typing "PORN" will cause the game to play a voice saying "Makin' looove!!" My wife was not pleased when I discovered THAT little easter egg, although she has since mellowed out on that point.

****And yes, I realize I'm a bit more hardcore about what I consider to be fair play than most. I mean, I'm the guy who said I would have passed on receiving a legendary item when I was a raid lead because I felt the optics behind a raid lead getting a legendary item were quite poor. You already know about why I volunteered to switch to a Shaman in TBC Classic so I don't need to rehash that, but you probably don't know about the amount of pushback that I got from people (especially those in positions of authority) who told me point blank that they had no qualms about making other people in the raid level toons instead of them. The attitude I got was more akin to something you'd hear Leona "Taxes are for the little people" Helmsley say than anything else.