This isn't a moral issue, it's a language issue. You are using the word "cheat" to mean entirely different things depending on a context that you are setting. Language is exactly the same social contract that you posit for games at the beginning of the post. You can only frame your argument in favor of cheating at solitaire by breaking the social contract of the language in which you're making that argument. You can indeed change the rules of solitaire to suit yourself without "cheating" but as soon as you tell someone else you've done so, it becomes cheating.
 

Different strokes for different folks. I see absolutely nothing wrong with cheating or modifying single player games as they affect no one else but yourself. I often play a game normally the first time to experience it as the devs intended and save that stuff for the next play through but I'm not above cheating or modding when it's affecting my enjoyment of a game. AC Odyssey is an example of a game where I cheated almost immediately by increasing my XP games as I hated the grindiness of it.

DOS2 I also cheated by enabling a party size increase mod so I could see all the story content available without having to run it twice as it's such a long game.
 

I agree with Bhagpuss, in that it's a language issue.

I've seen many instances of this in my gaming career, especially where 'high scores' and 'number of moves' are used as possible determinations of a 'win condition'. If a person is playing Solitaire and decides to 'cheat' in order to 'win', and that person is only playing the game to pass the time where the 'win' isn't part of some tournament or competition with other players, then 'cheating' is a misnomer in that regard because the 'cheating' that was used is known only to the player that played the game. The morality of the cheating only comes into play when the player decides to publish(make known) his 'win' amongst their peers for prestige, rank...etc. The peer group then has the right to discern 'how' this player came to beat the game, or reach the stated 'win condition'.
 

I am no native english speaker but for me 'cheating' is defined by 'not following the rule'. So all exemple given by Tobold are valid. A quick detour by wikipedia add 'in order to obtain unfair advantage' => The 'unfair advantage" seems to indicate that indeed someone else need to 'suffer' for 'cheating' to happen.
But cheat code are very old, and were mostly available in pure single player game.

So in the narrow definition of 'not following the rule' cheating in solo game make perfect sense. And I believe it is morally acceptable - as there is no harm done to anyone - utilitarist definition of morale.

I believe the original comment was more : removing the challenge of the game is stupid as the challenge is the whole goal. But the trick is to adapt the challenge to your own test, not remove it.
WHen there are opponents or competitors, cheating (in both definition) is clearly wrong, but I do not think anybody would contest that - even cheater know it, but consider their pleasure before those of other.
 

For some people, it's a matter of values. If you subscribe to those values, you either beat a challenge honestly within the terms of the challenge, or you fail (and derive some pleasure from having made your best honest effort). Others have other values - if that's the case, and the purpose of your game of solitaire is simple pleasure, and you derive pleasure from winning, then go for it. For the others, what matters to them is that character is what you do when nobody's watching, and I've certainly heard the phrase "he would cheat at solitaire" used to describe a person's character negatively.
 

> I believe the original comment was more: removing the challenge of the game is stupid as the challenge is the whole goal.


That's what I meant. I more specifically don't understand how "paying to make it easier/faster" is worth the invested money. Cheating/hacking (for free) while playing your own "offline" game makes sense, it's you and your fun, who cares. But if you go online, where you're supposed to play with others (example: World of Tanks) I would say this is a completely different scenario.

Yes, you may spend $10 and get a 2X experience bonus for a while. Then... what? A day later you find yourself "more experienced" and with a better item/tank/whatever. But then you realize that you're still needing a lot more grind to progress further.

These games are endless hamster wheels. "Paying to progress" will always result in (1) more grind ahead and (2) boredom, sooner or later. So, if the game is free, why not getting bored for free at a slower pace, instead of going faster at a cost?
 

Hey Tobold, I think it's been a long time since you played WoW. Originally I only PVP'd in WoW. With the WoW Classic release I thought I would try the PvE scene. Leveled up, joined a raiding guild, get buffs weekly, get consumes weekly, and then raid weekly.

Only to find the drop rates for gear are horrible. At least in PvP you could set some personal goals and at least achieve those even if you weren't getting gear. We are in a good enough guild we actually down all the bosses in every raid that is out. But we haven't gotten a single sword drop in AQ since it opened and we cleared it the second week it was open except for one optional boss. We've gotten only 2 daggers. Maybe 1 mace. And we clear it every... single... week... without... fail...

If I could cheat to get or even buy the 1h weapons I need right now I would do it because the game is getting to be boring since those of us that do melee are not improving our characters. Many melee classes have quit or swapped to casters, only those with great willpower are left and we are almost at our breaking point. Yes, I would cheat in this MMO if I knew how to get the swords, maces, or axes to drop and I think our guild would rejoice.

To hell with RNGs...