I don’t find shame in cheating in video games. It was a stigma to hear about growing up, that cheating in video games meant you prefer the shortcuts in life or that you didn’t know what earning anything was. When, that was all just bullshit talk.
I cheat in video games, when available to on some games, to give me a little kick of fun. Sometimes I don’t have the patience to tediously go through the standard way. Other times, I feel I’ve earned it anyways, because of having undergone the stresses and frustrations or the time I’ve played of certain games to go through the normal way.
Like in Terraria, it’s a game I’ve clocked in upwards of 900 hours. I felt like I had done everything in the game prior to the content that added the Moon Lord and many other things. At that time, it was 850 hours.
So the point of the matter is, yeah I don’t find it that big of a deal to cheat in video games. If I cared to and want to, I’m decent enough to handle games without cheats, given enough time.
Multiplayer of course I never cheat in those.
These days games often allow you to individually change the difficulty which I make use quite often when I feel a game is becoming too much of a hassle than a joy and I still want to know how the story continues or see what might be coming.
I don’t think I have used a classic cheat in a long time. The last time I actively remember was The Sims 3 (I guess) and it kind of killed the game for me because suddenly everything was possible without any challenge and even a normal playthrough felt like I was missing something.