Glitches and Cheats: If we can, should we?

A lot of people are debating the issue between Ensidia, the first people to fell the Lich King, and Blizz's removal of everything they got from their run. I won't take the time to rehash the story everyone has heard a thousand times, there are many blogs and forum posts that can do that better than I can, but I will talk about cheats and glitches in general, by time.

PAST

Way back when, I picked up my first video game, glitches and cheats (I'll refer to them as exploits unless I need to differentiate between them) were very popular. Note, this was before the widespread use of online gaming, and multiplayer gaming consisted of a couple of friends gathered at one house. Back then, people who knew exploits were considered "cool" amongst gaming circles. If you knew the Konami Code,

↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A

you were a gamer that knew what he was doing. And almost everyone looked up to you.

PRESENT

Fastforward to today. People are up in arms that Ensidia found an exploit and used it to their advantage to defeat the Lich King. Gone are the days when people revered those who knew exploits, come are the days that people hate those that fall in the standards of gaming. Glitching in mutliplayer games on consoles, like Halo, infuriate players and lead to banned accounts. Blizz actually put in their ToA and ToU that you can not use any exploits to your advantage, AKA "Play the game our way, and there won't be any problems." There are still those from the older days of gaming, that remember how they respected exploiters, and possibly were even revered themselves. They still respect those that use the errors, intentional and not, that developers and programmers put in the game. To them, it spices up the game, and adds a new dimension of challenge. To them, anyone can have a fair fight against those who play by the rules. But to tackle someone who is cheating, and try to come out on top, that is the true challenge that gamers need to face.

FUTURE

While I'm not about to predict the future, I can say this with great certainty. The days of revering exploiters are not gone forever, but hating exploiters will come back too. Could they come at the same time, and create a rift between gamers, two "classes" of gamers? Yes. It has happened before. And everytime it happened, the video game economy crashes. Everytime there is a crash, it is a struggle to come out of it. And if producers, developers, and everyone else doesn't make video games anymore, no new games. MMOs, like WoW, will fall by the way side, and eventually dissolve. Perhaps it is a fear of this future, a future with no video games, that keeps gamers going along with whatever the current trend is. Whether or not this will hold strong, is anyone's guess.

MY THOUGHTS

I think that Ensidia is in the right, and that Blizz overreacted when they took back the loot and gear and achievements from them. If Blizz doesn't catch the glitch, why do they have to yell at players for finding them? Why can't Blizz give out a nice little statement saying,

"We are sorry that we didn't find this glitch in time for the patch release. All rewards from exploit runs will be kept, but the glitch has been removed for future runs. Thank you and please have a nice day."

Ahh, but they wouldn't do that. That would be like the Umbrella Corporation giving a formal apology for the T-Virus. It will never happen. So for the meanwhile, gamers should continue to say how they feel. Forums, blogs, or even a comment on a blog is one more voice speaking against Blizz and/or Ensidia is one once of DPS that can make a change. We, the average gamers, don't have to be pushed around by developers or be pushed down by elitists.

Experience the paladin within.