A Discussion Thread in the Pwnzalot Drama - N/A

Moi: Okay, Pwnzalot lied. Now what? Everyone lies, you (reader) included, humankind is very prone to believe they own the world even when they screw up big time. Now I'm tempted to watch her stream, just to see how badly this level of harassment impacted her life.

ConkerTS: So to you, someone being shown up for cheating is 'harassment'? You must lack any sense of fair play at all. Normal people don't like cheating, and tend to be disgusted by it, and can be pretty vocal about it, and rightly so. Oh, and you can say things like "Everyone lies, you (reader) included.", if you like, but that doesn't make the point that you think it does. Yes, we all lie, but most of us don't lie to the extent of claiming the credit for something that 99.9% of the world could never mange to do, if it's even possible to do without cheating. Nor do we then insult the people who rightly point out that cheating (now that is genuine 'harassment', albeit of a very minor and ineffectual sort). Please try to understand this; SHE is the one who cheated. So you trying (and failing) to paint her as the victim, when she is a cheat and a liar, is not only stupid, but also dishonest.

Moi: Back then there used to be cheat codes in games that you could take advantages of to make the game easier, harder or weirder. Heck, using Action Replays you could even tweak the code to get infinite MPs or ammo, that way you could enjoy your gameplay in a different manner (if at all when you're visually impaired). ‘Normal people don't like cheating’? Yeah, right. I don't like cheaters in multiplayer games (both coop and versus) because their fun often ruins mine. I do appreciate the fact that all speedruns and achievements are monitored by fans to point out when someone tries to brag about with ill intent. When this happens, people like Billy Mitchell are rightfully stripped down of their titles as they fall into oblivion. Now what I do highlight in my comment is how videos about this drama are piling up as if Pwnzalot was the new Bobby Kotick or "Mr DMCA" Acerthorn. She's just a liar, nothing more, nothing less. Hence my first question: now, what?

ConkerTS: No, what you did in your first post was to try to seem morally superior to people who who are against someone trying to cheat the whole world in to believing that she hadn't actually done. That is why decent people are so disgusted with what she has done. SHE chose to fake the run. SHE chose to broadcast it to the world. SHE, when called out on it, instead of admitting the truth, lied about it and tried to discredit the people who were rightly accusing her. She deserves all of the criticism. In any other competitive field (such as athletics, swimming, even science, etc) if she had cheated on the world stage (which is tantamount to streaming your cheating for anyone, wherever they are in the world, to see) then she would receive criticism, disdain, and a total loss of respect and trust from that sport/game and it's community. So why should she not share that same fate. And remember, she is getting off much lighter than say an athlete who is discovered to be talking performance enhancing drugs; she's not even remotely as famous as an athlete, so most people won't know or remember her, especially not a few weeks from now. It's not like the newspapers or TV will occasionally reference her, as they might with the athlete. You say " Yeah, right. I don't like cheaters in multiplayer games (both coop and versus) because their fun often ruins mine.", after having the gross hypocrisy of criticizing people who dared to find fault with Queen Pwnzalot;s cheating. The fact that she wasn't playing multiplayer, but instead was trying to attain credit for something she couldn't do in real life is different from cheating in a multiplayer game, yes, but no less despicable. And yes, I am aware of the once common in-game cheats modes, and the existence of cheat cartridges. And I miss them, especially since now I can't play most of the first person shooters of the last decade or two using cheats to allow me to play through the game using just my favourite weapons and infinite ammunition. But that is for fun, not to con the world into thinking I have done something that I in reality have not done. And even if someone does cheats to complete a single player game, then there's nothing dishonest in that, as long as they don't deny it. But using cheats to complete a game, then saying that they completed that game without cheats (unless they previously did complete it without cheats), is wrong, and much more so if they lied on the internet to hundreds or thousands of other gamers, and much more so if the act (in this case, completing the game without cheats, in QP's case, defeating the boss character whilst blindfolded) is extremely hard or even considered impossible to do.

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Moi (version 1): ​ @ConkerTS  And your whole point is to highlight that higher moral ground of mine with the "people have a right to be outraged" argument, which I never even denied in the first place. Congrats!

I'm apathetic to the whole ordeal. There is no such thing as superior morality. Morality in general has yet to be defined by people that have much better brains than the both of us combined.

From my perspective, your stance is that of so many Internet trolls, the whole "I don't like that person for some reason so I'll make them say or do something I can leverage out of context to prove I'm right and they're wrong, and **I** shall have the last word because **I**'m right and they're wrong". Unfortunately for you, this is a comment section, not a forum. There is no official moderator/community manager here, therefore arguments cannot be fairly framed or monitored, and discussions are *always* one-sided.

One of the various consequences of the Streisand effect is Barnum's famous quote, ‘There is no such thing as bad publicity’. Is QP's case anything special? Absolutely not. Is beating this boss whilst blindfolded impossible? Surely you never saw a Mario Kaizo level before.

Moi (version 2): @ConkerTS Please don't be mistaken. People have a right to be outraged when they see someone do something that do not fit in their world's view but such outrage does NOT automatically grant them any moral superiority. You probably heard the famous line ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity’. Amonsgold and so many Internet sleuths did exactly that by giving her public exposure and wasting a massive among of resources to find the third monitor trick.

On a side note, if you think that beating some boss whilst blindfolded is an impossible achievement, maybe you should take a peek at the Trials of Death in Mario Maker. Give a try to Celeste, too, it's a really good game.