We’ve all searched the forums for cheat codes at one point or another, which is something I think every gamer can admit. As soon as they let you plug in that (ridiculously) long code, so that you can unlock a character or get some extra money, we feel like we've become rebels and it's kind of exhilarating. I have plugged in the cheat to get 30,000 bells into the original Animal Crossing game so many times my friend wanted to kill me (it’s WB2&pARAcnOwnU if you wanted to know). But those were put in the game on purpose, as they were meant to be something fun or a little extra help when you’re losing interest. But we all know those people that use bots or codes to cheat the game and it gives them an unfair advantage. Especially when it comes to online MMOs where grinding is part of the game and skipping that🌟 is just NOT okay. There’s nothing I like more then when those people get brutally smacked down. Maybe because it calls back to playing as a kid and my neighbor using a cheap shot and my brother taking him down. Justice can be sweet, especially when it comes to cheaters. Sometimes it's society that punishes them and sometimes it’s the game itself.

20 🐼 Banjo-Kazooꦇie

Like I said, a lot of video games give you cheat codes on purposes. It’s part of the fun, as they're there to make it easier or spice things up. Then there are the cheats that the game developers didn’t write or are high-test cheats that the developers don’t want you to abuse. This is the case in Banjo-Kazooie and the stakes are your game’s save file. That’s right, if you use𝓰 more than two “illegal” cheats, Grunty will swoop in and delete y♚our file. That being said, Bottles does come and tell you that you gotta knock it off, so you are warned before Grunty pops up. If it happens, it’s really your own fault.

19 T𓃲he Witcher 3:🍨 Wild Hunt

Part of the difficulty of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is the fact that you’re going to be broke for most of the game. But there is a nice little cheat that lets you get passed that, if you dare to do it. There is a farm of cows and if you kill them all and then meditate, they will respawn; so you can lather, rinse, repeat, until you are flush with (cow) blood money. This kind of broke the game, so the developers put in their own ‘Bovine Defense Force Initiative.’ Which sounds pretty awesome right🦹? Like something out of a spy movie. Basically, if you kill too many of the cows, this massive cow monster will pop up and brutally murder you. Can you say Divine Bovine justice?

18 🅰 𓆏 Tomb Raider 1... But Not 2

In the original Tomb Raider game, there is a cheat that lets you get every weapon in the game and with full ammo. Handy if all you want to do is beat the game quickly and be done with it. Or if you’re like me and crushing everything in your path is your idea of a good time. Cool cheat, but then if you do the same cheat in Tomb Raider 2, it will make Lara explode. Sounds like the game developers were really upset about the first cheat and decided to have some sweet revenge. That or they thought it would be funny to watch the gamers freak out. Anyway, it’s saꦗdistic and I love it.

17 👍 I’ll See You🦋 in Court

The police are pressing charges this time for cheating! Nexon’s Sudden Attack is in the middle of this lawsuit and the perpe𝐆trators are two seventeen-year-olds and one college freshman. Of course these teens weren’t exactly ‘just’ cheating. They were posting and selling cheats online and making millions (of yen) from them. Nexon decided to contact the police after hearing about this, not knowing that they were minors. In a statement , “Nexon's duty is to provide a balanced and fun environment for all players. Having received a large number of complaints and inquiries regarding the cheats, we contacted the police regarding the issue. Once the investigation ensued, the police contacted us for additional information and we cooperated with their investigation.” The lesson? If you want to cheat, make sure you don’t make any money off of it.

16 𒈔 ღ A Public Apology

H1Z1 is another MMO, but with a zombie twist. It’s a lot of fun until cheating became so rampant the Daybreak Game Company had to ban a whopping 30,000 players. The only wa𓆉y to get unbanned? A public apology. Some players took that to heart and made their own apology videos on YouTube. , if you’re feeling a bit masochistic today. The game developers only lifted the ban on about five people out of that 30,000 thanks to the videos. That being said, they wanted to let ev❀eryone know they weren’t going to go easy on future cheating, as they only lifted FIVE out of 30,000. This quote from Daybreak president John Smedley is almost poetic in it’s anger:

Makes you wish more developers would be more hard on the ꦗ‘cockroaches’ of th🐈e gaming community.

15 ෴ Player Killer

The developers of Red Dead Redemption were not as sweeping a𒆙s the guys at Daybreak Game Company when it comes to cheating. But they were pretty clever by making it self-regulating. It leaves it to the other players to put up complaints, including complaints about hacking, and if the player racks up 🅰enough complaints, then they get the brand “player killer.” Which makes it really hard to team up with anyone online, which basically just makes everything more difficult. It sounds fair considering their cheating is making things easier for them and harder for everyone else. It’s evening the playing field. Plus you have a permanent ‘wanted’ level, meaning you stick out to other players. It’s pretty devious.

14 League of Legends - Azubu Frost 🔯

Major league gaming is obviously taken very seriously by much of the gaming community, which means that cheating is a pretty big offense. But these guys didn’t use any fancy coding or bots to cheat, they did it the old fashioned way. They looked at the other player’s screen (alright they looked at the giant screen depicting the match but still). It really does harken back to those childhood days of, “You’re looking at my screen!” that I remember. They were fined $30,000, so obviously it was a bit more extreme than a ten-year-old looking at the other half of the screen during a Halo game. This was a huge scandal for the gaming team, Azubu Frost, and there’s p🅘roof of it all over .

13 Animal C♏rossing - Mr. Resetti

Anyone who has played Animal Crossing before knows about that terrible mole, Mr. Resetti. He’s a character that pops up if you turn off your game without saving (or reset, get the name now?). Someone at Nintendo was upset about the fact that if you messed up in any game൩, all you had to do was quit without saving. Mr. Resetti is the punishment for that. He will literally talk non-stop. The more times you quit, the longer he goes on. It practically becomes a jump-scare when he pops out of the ground in front of your house. The worst is when your DS died and you didn’t notice, but you still have to deal with him. It feels like being framed for murder. “I swear it wasn’t me! I didn’t mean to!” I’m still afraid of him to this day.

12 GTA V

We all know Rockstar has a sick sense of humor, I mean you don’t create games like GTA or Postal without being a bit sadistic. Which is why you don’t want to mess with GTA V Online. There’s a way to glitch your car from single-player mode to online, which obviously gives you an unfair advantage. So what did Rockstar do? Blow you up. That’s right, the game knows that the car isn’t supposed to be there, so it plants a car bomb in it. As soon as you get in, BOOM! It’s pretty funny to see a game like GTA mess witꦕh you for cheating. Seems kind of like a low BLOW. See what I did there? Also, they make you wear a dunce cap. I just have to say the crime fits ౠthe punishment here.

11 ꩵ Max Payn♓e 3

Like I said before, Rockstar has some pretty poetic ways of dealing with cheaters. In Max Payne 3, p𝓰layers figured ou𒈔t a way to make themselves invincible with infinite health and adrenaline. What did Rockstar do? They made them play together. And only together. That’s right, there’s a mystical land just for cheaters out there, where you can do as many hacks as you want, but the player next to you might have even more hacks. I wonder how many players yelled, “That’s not fair!” when they saw a cheat they didn’t have. I also wonder how many noticed the intense irony of the situation. Rockstar did let some gamers back into the fold of law-abiding murderers, but if they skirted the rules again, they’d be banned straight up this time; no happy land of no rules for them.