Is it against the ToS of Steam to cheat in offline games if the games sell boosters?

[Cherrycat]

Some offline games now sell currency and boosters, is it against the ToS to cheat and bypass the publishers micro-transactions?

[Eldin]

If game doesn't have VAC protection, then it's up to the game developer to say is it ok to cheat.
The worst thing that can happen is, developer might ban you from that game. But that almost never happens with single player games.

[Start_Running]

Messaggio originale di Cherrycat:

Some offline games now sell currency and boosters, is it against the ToS to cheat and bypass the publishers micro-transactions?

The Steam ToS is not what you need to worry about but the games EULA, that actually supercedes the Steam SSA. And c hances are the games EULA most certainly says that's a bad thing.

[76561198001062896]

as long as forementioned game doesnt connects to any servers, Tos or not, you wont get punished for it anyway.

[Tito Shivan]

Offline or Online is a failed concept when thinking about cheats. The real difference is if a game is AC protected or not.
Some games are still protected by anticheat when playing offline/solo, others don't

[Start_Running]

Talking about offline/online cheat/anti cheat is like asking if its wrong to steal from a house with an unlocked door.

[The End]

Messaggio originale di Cherrycat:

Some offline games now sell currency and boosters, is it against the ToS to cheat and bypass the publishers micro-transactions?

You ask if it's ok to steal? No it's not and I'm sure it's against the rules.

[Eldin]

Messaggio originale di Start_Running:

Talking about offline/online cheat/anti cheat is like asking if its wrong to steal from a house with an unlocked door.

It's not stealing.
In-game currency of single player games is just a number stored on your computer and changing it doesn't affect anyone else.
If you haven't intended purchasing that currency anyways, there's no difference between grinding that currency for days and just changing the number manually.

[Zekiran]

Messaggio originale di Eldin:

Messaggio originale di Start_Running:

Talking about offline/online cheat/anti cheat is like asking if its wrong to steal from a house with an unlocked door.

It's not stealing.
In-game currency of single player games is just a number stored on your computer and changing it doesn't affect anyone else.
If you haven't intended purchasing that currency anyways, there's no difference between grinding that currency for days and just changing the number manually.

If a product of any kind, digital or otherwise, is offered FOR MONEY by the producer of that item, and you are bypassing giving them money for that item, OF COURSE IT IS STEALING.

What you believe and what reality says are radically different.

[Tito Shivan]

Messaggio originale di Eldin:

It's not stealing.
In-game currency of single player games is just a number stored on your computer and changing it doesn't affect anyone else.

That's up to the developer to decide. As said earlier many games also check for single player cheats.

[Start_Running]

Messaggio originale di Eldin:

Messaggio originale di Start_Running:

Talking about offline/online cheat/anti cheat is like asking if its wrong to steal from a house with an unlocked door.

It's not stealing.
In-game currency of single player games is just a number stored on your computer and changing it doesn't affect anyone else.
If you haven't intended purchasing that currency anyways, there's no difference between grinding that currency for days and just changing the number manually.

You're missing the point. So let me simplify.

THere is one question being asked.
Is X right or wrong?
But another question got snuck in:
Can you do X without getting caught?

The fact is, once the idea of getting caught becomes a consideration that immediately answers the first question. So let me simplify it.

Is doing the wrong thing wrong if you can do it without getting caught?

[Eldin]

Messaggio originale di Start_Running:

Messaggio originale di Eldin:

It's not stealing.
In-game currency of single player games is just a number stored on your computer and changing it doesn't affect anyone else.
If you haven't intended purchasing that currency anyways, there's no difference between grinding that currency for days and just changing the number manually.

You're missing the point. So let me simplify.

THere is one question being asked.
Is X right or wrong?
But another question got snuck in:
Can you do X without getting caught?

The fact is, once the idea of getting caught becomes a consideration that immediately answers the first question. So let me simplify it.

Is doing the wrong thing wrong if you can do it without getting caught?

Is it right or wrong depends on the game.

Question "Is it ok to cheat in single player games?" arises here.
Most of the people agree that it is ok to cheat and modify single player games, as long as you're not ruining the experience for other players.

Messaggio originale di Zekiran:

If a product of any kind, digital or otherwise, is offered FOR MONEY by the producer of that item, and you are bypassing giving them money for that item, OF COURSE IT IS STEALING.

What you believe and what reality says are radically different.

I'm currently playing XCOM 2.
It's a single player game and developers allowed cheating by letting you add any resource or item just by typing command in the console.
You could for example add 100000 supplies (one of the main currencies) and make game much easier for yourself. And that's totally fine because you're not ruining experience for others and you're not doing harm to anyone.

Even if there was no console, it would be ok to cheat with Cheat Engine, for the same reason I wrote above.


But now imagine that developers added option to purchase supplies with real money.
Nothing else in game changed, you could still cheat the same way as before, but there's an option to purchase those supplies with real money.
Would cheating then be ok and would it be considered stealing?

[Zekiran]

XCom is not a microtransaction game, iirc, so your 'example' is completely and totally moot.

I can do those things in Fallout, Skyrim, hell even HL2.

Those are not microtransaction games (well, fo is now, but that's another stupid story).

IF a single-player game RELIES on transactions for loot, and you bypass that system in order to give yourself that product, IT IS STEALING.

There's a reason why, for instance, Bethesda's fallout 'store' locks items to it, and you can't get modded resources on the Nexus, without OWNING them. A lot of mods rely on released - but PAID - items from that store.

If you were to download those, they would not work. Because you'd need the PAID FOR content. Just like if you want to use Garry's Mod for a lot of things, you NEED to own - legally and paid for - Counterstrike Source among other resources, and cannot legally use them otherwise.

[Cherrycat]

We live in a time where random people on Steam are now saying duplicating currency in an offline game is stealing. From publishers fine, but people on Steam...

When you hear "games as services" you should treat it like the company wants to burn your house down. It's all downhill from here.

[Eldin]

Messaggio originale di Zekiran:

XCom is not a microtransaction game, iirc, so your 'example' is completely and totally moot.

I can do those things in Fallout, Skyrim, hell even HL2.

Those are not microtransaction games (well, fo is now, but that's another stupid story).

IF a single-player game RELIES on transactions for loot, and you bypass that system in order to give yourself that product, IT IS STEALING.

There's a reason why, for instance, Bethesda's fallout 'store' locks items to it, and you can't get modded resources on the Nexus, without OWNING them. A lot of mods rely on released - but PAID - items from that store.

If you were to download those, they would not work. Because you'd need the PAID FOR content. Just like if you want to use Garry's Mod for a lot of things, you NEED to own - legally and paid for - Counterstrike Source among other resources, and cannot legally use them otherwise.

XCOM is not a microtransaction game, but there are a lot of games with resources like in XCOM and shouldn't have microtransaction. But they do have microtransactions just because some developers are too greedy.

If some items, maps, characters, skins, etc. are purchasable as DLCs (as additional content to the base game) then I could agree that it's not ok to try to obtain those items illegally.

But if the game is designed to make you grind for days or months to get some in-game currency so you can buy stuff to progress in the game, and then they make that currency purchasable with real money, so you have to choose between grinding like crazy or spending money.
Then I would say it's completely fine to cheat there, especially if it's a game you paid for.

Same goes for consumable items. I hate when developer makes some levels unbeatable without consumables and then force you to spend money on them if you want to continue progressing.

Mobile games mostly do this kind of stuff. But recently a lot of Steam games started doing this too.

[Aachen]

Messaggio originale di Cherrycat:

We live in a time where random people on Steam are now saying duplicating currency in an offline game is stealing ....

Nice strawman. Which “random people” have said that? Nearest I’ve read is “if a developer offers paid content in a single-player game, and you bypass paying for it, you’re stealing.”