No, sometimes cheats actually make the game harder. Some people do, in fact, cheat to make the game harder rather than easier.

There's also at least one case, in Icewind Dale 2, where you might want to cheat to *prevent* the game from being too easy. If you introduce a new level 1 character into an existing party, the rest of the party will gain XP faster, and that can unbalance the game. On the other hand, if you cheat that new character's XP to match that of your other party members, then level them up, this increased XP won't happen, and the game will remain reasonably balanced.

Also, I consider modding a game to be cheating, but not all mods make the game easier; in fact, there are many mods whose primary purpose is to make the game harder, preferably in an interesting way.

A couple possible reasons:
* The minigame is not affected by the difficulty. (Minigames are usually not as polished as the main game, and things like this are common.)
* The minigame is not manageable even on the easiest difficulty. For example, maybe the minigame requires pressing buttons with both hands, and the player can only make use of one hand (maybe they just had surgery on the other hand? maybe the other hand is in a cast? maybe the person was born with a disability that makes them not able to effective use that hand?). Or, maybe the minigame is reliant on an audio cue, and is impossible without being able to hear, but the player is deaf, or is playing with the sound off because it would disturb others?

Unfortunately, when it comes to minigames, these sort of situations are far too common.

I don't think there is a wrong answer to this, everybody's preference is correct for that person, they bought the game and can play it however they want.

1. Maybe I appreciate the general challenge and hate the uneven spikes in difficulty that result in the game being unbalanced. It's one thing to push through a very hard section, it's another when I'm questioning how on earth someone is supposed to beat this without inhuman reflexes or luck, especially when the conditions of the difficulty are a toss of the dice.
2. How else am I supposed to unlock the secret Bazooka-Med level?

EDIT: I'll give an example.

In the Omaha level, if you take too many hits and you don't follow the squad when you're rushing to the bunker, it's practically impossible to continue without restarting the level, since you are gated by how much damage you can take and the machine gun isn't going to miss.

In the section of the fort level where you have to protect your fellow soldier mans, there are four respawning snipers and you can only lose 8 allies before you are game over'd. The snipers are more deadly and accurate than the allies can fend off.

Otherwise, when I did feel compelled to cheat, I usually reloaded before that and did it properly. It was those two sections (the snipers and the final stretch, I did end up restarting Omaha) I gave up on and just cheated, but otherwise gritted my teeth through the aim bots.

I know it's hard to admit it, myself included since I'm guilty of this as well, is that often there's this image that playing at the hardest difficulty gives you this kind of high position in the community of that game you're playing. Heck, if you look around the internet and search what difficulty do you play in -insert game name-, people would often say that they're playing at the hardest difficulty, and only some would say that they play on normal, much less on easy. I don't even know whether those who say they play on the hardest difficulty are lying to make them look good or not (if they're lying, wouldn't it be better for them to not respond to the thread in the first place so they won't have to admit to anything or worse, lie?).

Therefore, as I've said I'm also guilty of this as well, I would follow those people and play at the hardest difficulty or I'd be ashamed of myself, I guess. One example I can give you is when I played Banished. I for the longest time used to play the game on normal difficulty, only to try playing on hard right after I found out that many people play the game on the hard (which I think is the hardest difficulty in the game). I quit soon after knowing that the game became really difficult in the early game due to the strict early game restrictions that the hard difficulty presents. Of course I could go back to playing on normal difficulty, but I also got bored of the game lol.

And ofc, it could also be because they just want to unlock all the achievements in the game, and that playing the hardest difficulty in the game is one of the requirements. So it depends on the person.

100%

Games are about enjoyment. If you are enjoying the difficulty, great. If you are not...

... either find a way to enjoy it as-is (lower difficulty, cheat codes, etc.)...

... or...

... just move on. While I tend to play games to completion, if I don't enjoy the experience, I'll stop playing in no time flat.

There are bullet hell games where there's thousands of projectiles on screen at any given time, and somehow there's people who beat them.

At this point i don't care what the difficulty level is. I'm not going to accept dying 50 times and using quicksaves so i can beat a game on hard/hardcare/whatever difficulty, and would rather cheat and edit the saves so i can get through the storyline much easier. I'm not 18 anymore and don't have the twitch reflexes to play Mortal Kombat or any fighting games competently anymore, even if i did decently enough before.

And cheating to remove the grind... Ever played Dark Cloud? (Level-5 game for PS2). The game was a grind, low drop rates of items to upgrade weapons, no real leveling system other than raised hitpoints, and i beat it legitly taking something like 200 hours. But with a cheat i could beat it in closer to 10 hours simply by making the grind go away and getting the story in a much shorter spurt rather than 'why was i doing this again' since there wasn't a replay of cinematics or story.

I say if you want to be hardcore, be hardcore. Otherwise, screw it and just do what you need to have fun. Cheers.

Worth noting that, in bullet hell shmups, the player's hitbox is small, and some bullet hells provide some way to actually see that hitbox. This means that, for example, quite often a bullet will pass through the player sprite harmlessly, so what would look like a hit in a more typical game is actually not a hit in a bullet hell shmup. In fact, some of these games actually reward you for getting close enough to the bullet for it to overlap your sprite without actually getting hit; you might get points for doing so, you might get a boost to the rate at which you earn points (yes, scoring mechanics can get that complicated), or you might even be rewarded with extra lives.

Cheating cheapens the game and ruins the satisfaction I get out of it. And this is the case even if the game is so unreasonably difficult I can't complete it even after repeated attempts.

In most cases it's far better just to drop it and find something better to play than to resort to a cheat. Perhaps the only reason to cheat is if the storytelling is so solid you want to see the end and for whatever reason watching a YT vid doesn't appeal.

Ah, yes...the good old e-peen comparison.
Luckily, I never had that problem myself.
I find the most satisfying way to beat a game, is to beat it on my own...regardless of the difficulty level...and without cheating.
But to each their own, I guess.

Probably the best advice possible in this regard.
No point in sticking to something, that you don't enjoy, anymore...

Preach it!
Whenever I dig up old games, that I played reasonably well - decades ago - I notice that my age is showing.
Now, granted: some of it has to do with "not being in training" anymore (who has the time to spend hours on end with playing computer games today (with 50+) as they had as teenagers?), but some (a lot?) has definitely to do with age (keyword: slower reflexes, etc).
This.
Fully agree.

I'd argue that good use of cheating won't ruin the satisfaction from the game.

Thing is, good use of cheating can be difficult to figure out. Doing that may require some understanding of the game's design, and of the game's design flaws; knowledge of them can help with developing a way to cheat that doesn't ruin the fun.

In some cases, combining cheating with self-imposed restrictions can be an interesting way to play the game.

Also, don't forget that you can cheat to make the game *harder*.

But what if you semi-enjoy the experience, and also at the same time semi-dislike the experience too?

I experienced that last night while playing Metro 2033 for the first time, because I wanted to see if I should buy the final game during the sale whilst the other two were sitting in my backlog for years.

After playing for a few hours, I liked many things about the game, like the atmosphere and voice-acting, and I also disliked many aspects, like needing to pixel-hunt for currency bullets and merchants, and having to reload the shotgun after every single round, even though it takes multiple shotgun rounds to take down the monster creatures, which means I get mangled while reloading and there's nothing I can possibly do about that (strafing doesn't work).

And then I experienced an ultra-aggravating section where the game presented itself like it was intercutting between gameplay sections and cutscene sections...and I kept dying many times in a row in that segment, and I had no idea why.

I tried switching the filter in my gas mask and that didn't work, since the game made it look like I was suffocating from gas.

Then after many aggravating and unfair repeated deaths in this segment, I was forced to search the web and find out that the apparent cutscenes were not actually cutscenes, and that you have to sprint forward during the final occurrence of that cutscene-like non-cutscene.

I am not quite ready to ragequit out of the game at this point, but if unenjoyable experiences like this keep piling up, then maybe I will eventually.

So I think it's not always easy to determine when exactly a game meets, or doesn't quite meet, the threshold of being "not enjoyable enough" to quit.

Nah. Cheating can save the game from a bigger disappointment and redeem satisfaction, especially if it's one known-badly-done boss, or super late in the game. (Or, in the case of Dungeons 2, balance patches rendered the last stage of the campaign unwinnable when it originally was winnable..)

There are cases where you have to cheat too because of horrible game design.
Apparently the boss of the Rise of the Triad remake is impossible to beat on higher difficulties without cheese strats.
I think Civvie talked about it when he covered that game.

I'd say whenever a mechanic punishes you unintentionally. For example, in the case where a bug makes you lose all your money, I'd consider reasonable using an editor to restore it back.