What does "beating a game" mean to you?

[Exhuminator]

All of these poll options and you left out the one option most discussed and polarizing in the other thread, "On one credit".

Is the poll option:

Reaching the credits without ever dying a single time.

Not close enough?

I can add the other specific for you though. So I'll do that now.

I want to point out that the "on one credit" aspect has little to do with console, PC, mobile, or handheld gaming. Which make up a hugely proportional aspect of the medium. Also most people do not have a backlog of arcade games. Because that would be hugely expensive and inconvenient. Unless you're just emulating stuff. And in the case of emulation one could have an infinite backlog which kind of nullifies what a backlog truly is.

[Ack]

All of these poll options and you left out the one option most discussed and polarizing in the other thread, "On one credit".

Is the poll option:

Reaching the credits without ever dying a single time.

Not close enough?

Not necessarily. Some games do give you several lives per a single credit. For instance, Metal Slug lets you get hit three times before you have to use a new credit, so you could still die twice and get a 1CC on it.

[irixith]

To me, beating a game involves playing it from the beginning point to the end point...or multiple end-points if the game has them and the mood strikes...or looping back to the beginning point if there is no ending point that triggers a game over.

How you get to the end is completely immaterial and of no consequence, as long as you had fun and enjoyed the experience. If playing within the original constraints is your fun, great! If playing with only one life is your fun, amazing! If using tools like cheat codes and save states is your fun, excellent! If you need to get all of the achievements/trophies/whatever to add it your complete list, far out! It matters not one bit, as long as you're enjoying the experience on your own terms.

[Exhuminator]

So apparently adding a new option to the poll reset the entire goddamn thing.

Okay.

[MrPopo]

"Beating" the game suggests you defeated its challenge. There are additional challenges, like 1cc, but the fundamental challenge of a game is reaching the credits.

I'd argue that massively credit feeding where progress doesn't reset isn't defeating its challenge. To use the example I had in another thread, infinite credits with no reset means the game could be beaten by a controller on autofire while you're in another room. So that's not really defeating its challenge.

[Sarge]

What we really need to know is what the devs intended the credit-feed rate to be (if that was the primary design consideration), and use that as the metric.

I think the biggest issue here is that arcade games are tricky as all get-outs to quantify. While some arcade games allow for (or are even designed for!) 1CC runs, others are not reasonably set up or designed as such, so to consider that "beaten" we'd have to know what the developer had in mind as reasonable. In most cases, we don't have that information, so it's forever going to remain nebulous. I think the truth, for most arcade games, lies between "credit feeding" and "1CC".

So apparently adding a new option to the poll reset the entire goddamn thing.

Okay.

You were expecting anything less?

[Exhuminator]

Another thing to consider is that arcade games have dip switches affecting the amount of lives available on 1 credit. So in that regard, how does one determine what the developers actually intended 1 credit to encapsulate? There are also dip switches that affect the overall difficulty of the game that must be considered as well. Do you hardcore 1cc players just use the default dip switch settings?

[BoneSnapDeez]

I voted the first selection. Reaching the credits within normal bounds is how I roll. If I get lives/continues I'll use them (that's what they're there for).

This. Default difficulty or higher, no controller cheats (turbo or whatever), no cheat codes (either in-game or Game Genie), no save states. Pretty cut and dry.

I'm not a completionist or a competitive gamer so the 100% or 1CC stuff doesn't do much for me.

The hardest thing for me, as a huge 2nd gen fan, is determining when old Atari type games can be considered beaten as it can be ambiguous at times. Do at least one loop is my general rule.

[Key-Glyph]

First, let me clarify that I have absolutely nothing against "cheating." I'm with ixirith on this one. And with that out of the way, I have some questions for you folks because I find this topic incredibly interesting.

For those of you who feel that beating a game is only legitimate without cheats:

-- Does the use of a temporary cheat invalidate your run (e.g. to get past one level, one boss)?
-- If so, do you consider temporarily turning down the difficulty of a game to be effectively the same thing, or is it different because the developer gave you the option to do so?

I'm also really curious about the treatment of save states. I completely understand the need to replay one level over and over again to get a handle on a particular pattern or boss, for example, but I'm always surprised that this isn't considering "cheating." Again, I think the practice is totally legitimate; it's just that I'm intrigued by the pushback to justify save states as specifically "not cheating" instead of just accepting that we've collectively agreed they're "justified cheating."

I know there was a whole argument about this in the shmups subforum, and I read through a lot of it, so I'm not trying to rehash that. I'm simply curious why there's sometimes a selective distinction between using level select codes in one game (which seems to fall under most definitions of "cheating") and using save states in another. To me they're roughly equivalent, with save states offering the higher advantage to the player (to restart from anywhere and such).

[SonicGamer74]

If you see the end credits, it counts as, "beaten" for me.

Anything else is considered completing, and mastering, IMO.

The only exception being that you used like, a cheat code or something to get to the end. Save states are nice, though, if you're not actively using it to cheat.