Growing up when I was gaming in the 90s and on, I knew of the stigma of cheating in video games. You were seen as stupid, someone incapable of completing challenges on your own. You were seen as lowly, someone who can never go through life without cheating. Like, it was a pretty big deal as I grew up, hearing all of this for years on end.
I’ve been able to beat games without cheating, of course. But during my late teens and early adulthood, I just tried going past the stigma. Cheating in video games don’t necessarily reflect how you handle life and don’t translate. I’ve found it quite fun to cheat in video games. Probably not in multiplayer and especially on the receiving end.
I even use cheats just to beat games anymore, who the hell cares. People only care if you want to make a big deal about it, by showing it to everyone and boast how you’ve beaten a game in record times. I’ve tried beating some games head on without cheats but there just comes a point where you ask yourself if it is fun dying a hundred times at some part of a game. I don’t think so, personally.
So yeah, I don’t have the stigma anymore. I kinda like how gamers today only care about cheating if it was done in multiplayer or if you’re trying to beat a speedrunning record or some score record. Fun is meant to be how you find it.
Single-player-only games? Sometimes (slightly more if you include something like no-clipping myself after getting stuck in the terrain or an object). Never in anything multiplayer.
I usually play with zero cheats on the easiest difficulty of something, at least for the first play-through. I’m generally more there for the story and some light involvement in things rather than being there for combat or something (even as someone who was in a few FPS tournaments back in the early 2000s).