In all honesty, I don't consider any sort of modification of a single-player game to be cheating. You are not robbing anybody else of their experience nor are you giving yourself any sort of competitive advantage.
I often find myself using cheats, mods, etc to maximize my enjoyment of a game. I'll use a particular example involving FPS's with health meters that is almost universal for me. I am extremely OCPD (obsessive compulsive personality disorder... look it up, it's not as bad as it sounds and I bet many of you will be surprised to find you are too, it tends to fit many gamers' mindsets) and therefore do not like to save if I have expended too much health or ammo on a particular encounter. Instead, I will find myself repeating the same area until near perfection is achieved. The problem is, I'm a medical student and don't really have the time for that (at least, not with my unending appetite for new games). Combine those 2 things and, for the sake of my time and sanity, I really only have 1 choice: I cheat. I often turn on invincibility and infinite ammo in these kinds of games (Halflife 2 and Doom 3 being the most recent examples I can think of where I did this since most shooters have moved away from health meters).
This is essentially accomplishing the same thing as my repetitive replaying of an area with quick save and quick load, except it takes me FAR less time. This increases MY satisfaction with the game: the ultimate consideration. I still play the game as if I didn't have the cheats on. I go out of my way to try and avoid getting hit, take cover, etc.... I just know that at the end of it I won't have to actually worry about redoing that segment because I'm not 100% satisfied with my outcome.
I sometimes find myself doing similar things in resource collection RTS's that have extensive buildup times due to long resource collection periods or, as mentioned earlier, RPG's that have endless grinds (see: reasons I quit WoW). These "cheats" increase my enjoyment of the game as they eliminate the elements I dislike and have absolutely no impact on others. How is this anything but beneficial?
For those who want to proclaim that my "cheating" robs me of experiencing the game as it is intended to be experienced, I would argue back that I am compensating for flaws in the game design (at least, flaws as they are perceived by me). I recently played through and beat COD4 on veteran with no cheats because the experience felt right without them. I only use them when I feel the game warrants it.
I also may be a different type of gamer from many of you. I am not a "challenge" gamer: I perceive no added benefit to overcoming a significant, yet frustrating challenge (by no means does this mean I like things overly easy though, I tend to default to the "hard" mode of most games). Instead, I often find myself to be an "experience" gamer: I like to see what new is coming, the additions to the story, etc. Perhaps this difference may explain it better to some of you.
Log in to comment