Is it possible to cheat in a single player game?

There is an exploit in ME3 that has Wrex alive if the genophage is sabotaged

Story rich games tend to have a 'very, very easy' setting these days. In ME3 it's called 'narrative' I think? And in TW3 'just the story'. Basically you no longer need cheats.

It's different in for example strategy games, where console commands can make the game way easier than intended even by the easiest dificulty setting.

Given the rather broad definition of cheating, I think that it is possible to cheat in a single player game.

However, I also think that it doesn't matter if the only person you're affecting is yourself. Me and my friend used to use cheats on GTA 3 to give ourselves a bunch of weapons and then take turns going on rampages and as long as we're having fun, what does it matter?

I also use save game editors on Mass Effect 2 so that I can bypass things that make the game less enjoyable for me like planet scanning and dealing with paragon/renegade meters that punish you for not going almost all out down one path.

Of course it's fully within the rights of the developer to fix a bug that allows one to cheat like say, the infinite money thing in DA:O. Depending on what it is and how likely somebody is to stumble across it, it might not be a very high priority over other things though.

Ive never seen that bug, but I wouldn't need it anyways. Just getting the Reaper's Cudgel once (which is hard), allows you to be rich for the rest of time. It's almost an official cheat by itself.

Sandwiches and games are not comparable.  Is it cheating to "peak" at solitaire (i.e. when playing with a regular deck of cards, not online)?  Is it unfair to then say to anyone that you won that game of solitaire?  Yes it is - so it's cheating.  That said, is it encumbant on anyone else (let alone the maker of the deck of cards) to stop someone from peaking... or is it really encumbant upon the player themselves to stop themselves?  The answer is the latter... if they believe they are cheating or they want the others around them to respect them for beating the game legitimately, they have to stop themselves?  If they don't want to stop themselves, they cannot tell others they are beating the game legitimately and they "cheat themselves" from the satisfaction of knowing that they can probably beat the game without cheating.

I agree completely... there is a matter of the player's intent to also be considered here.  Using a "workaround" to get around a bug affecting playability is not cheating... and in that case, I believe, it is encumbant upon the developer to fix the bug that caused the problem.  Whether or not they decide to fix the exploit that allowed for a workaround is up to them.

In the case of exploiting a bug for self-gain in an single-player game... the concept of  "cheating" comes into play when the player deceives themselves as to whether or not they are "beating" the game (i.e. self-deception) or tell their friends they beat the game without mentioning that they did so by using an exploit (i.e. lying).  Since the question posed is "is it possible" - the answer must be yes, it is possible to cheat in a single player game (although, I admit, I'm not really sure what the OP means by a singer player game)

The developers entitle them "games," and they bother to program in rules, point systems, rare items, etc.  The stores market them as "games." It's not just me that considers them to be more akin to other games than movies or records or other forms of "entertainment."

You're also missing the point - If you want to "cheat" (ie. break the developer's rules) and tell yourself it's not cheating, that IS your business.  I've been saying that it's not encumbent on a developer to try to stop you from doing that.  However, if I want to consider you to be a "cheater" as a result, that's my prerogative.  You can't tell me what opinions I should have about you (or anyone else for that matter).  They are my opinions, and I am entitled to them.

Yes, it is possible to cheat in an SP game.

But all you really get is the fact that you cheapened your victory. Bypassing bugs aside.

Short answer, yes.

Long answer, why does it matter?

Seems innocuous to me. Carry on then.

What does "fair use" have to do with anything I've said so far on this thread?  Cheating (i.e. breaking a set of game rules) has nothing to do with copyright infringement or consumer rights.  You're dragging in a completely separate thread on a completely separate topic.  I doubt a developer could sue a player for not playing an SP game in accordance with the game rules and I doubt any player could sue a developer for fixing an exploit that they've used to enable themselves to break a game rule.

Ignoring the rabbit hole that is the definition of "game," there are more similar examples than Her Story. Save-scumming in XCOM is a form of cheating, and it most certainly mitigates the stakes. XCOM is a drastically different experience when you know you can just go back.

Obviously, there are levels of cheating in games just as there are in all things. Giving yourself a few gold in an RPG might not ruin the game, but it may remove the sense of accomplishment you get from buying that item you really wanted. Although, given how lame most RPG economies are, you probably wouldn't be missing too much. Regardless, the point still stands; any alteration to the mechanics of a game alters that game's ability to elicit a reaction from the player, which can result in a worse experience.

I'd love to live in a world where cheating was the exact equivalent to spark notes. It would probably mean that every one of a game's mechanics was so inextricably linked to its narrative that nearly any level of cheating would be decidedly detrimental to the experience. This is clearly an implausible reality, hence why I'm not so strictly against cheating. In the real world, cheating in some elfroot for DA:I won't kill the game because the act of collecting elfroot is about as engaging as just cheating it in anyway, nor is the progression so well-paced that (like a good survival horror game's for example) that having an abundance of a resource undermines the game's core message.

But seriously though, Her Story has better and more interesting game design than most games I've played. Just because the mode of traversal is through search chains rather than rendered 3d pathways, doesn't mean that the game should be labeled something so nebulous as "experience." There was a lot of deliberate thought behind the input methods, atmosphere, and pacing that many supposedly "traditional" games could only dream of having. I'm pedantic not to legitimize the game itself (it does that well enough on its own), but to hopefully expand upon the meaning of "game." Games should have more than a couple predominant input methods, so more games like Her Story are only a benefit to the industry in my mind.