We've all seen them in at least one game. Game design flaws that aren't exactly glitches, but aren't really meant to be discovered. For example, my most recent experience with one such design flaw, I discovered whilst playing Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. I discovered an area near a doorway, with no enemies, and three wall-mounted candleholders. Now the candles in these games can be destroyed with your whip, and they drop loot of some type typically. The flaw? Since things regenerate when you leave a room and re-enter it, and this area (and the room that the door connects it to) is completely void of enemies, and one of the candles in the room always drops $25 when destroyed, you can literally rack up an infinite amount of cash, without fear of encountering a single foe. Did I exploit the flaw? Um...well, that isn't relevant to this post, now is it? xD

These moments can happen in many games, sometimes getting you a large supply of loot (like the one I mentioned here), sometimes extra lives (Mario and Sonic?), sometimes it's a certain spot where you can stand and a boss can't hit you with any attacks, you name it and there's a game with that spot in there.

So now that you know what I'm talking about, tell me two things:
1. Do you think it's cheating to exploit these moments in games?

2. Have you ever done it? And if so, what game was it in, and what was the "flaw" that you exploited?

In all honesty, I do think in a way it could be considered cheating. But if the flaws are there, someone will always find a way to exploit them, it's just a fact about these situations. I often come across places in games such as Borderlands 2 where I can shoot at enemies that are ten levels higher than me, kill them and not take any damage whatsoever. I'm not going to lie, I've been exploiting a lot of games as I've grown up with around them, and have found that it takes away from the challenge of the game.
 One game I always used to cheat on was GTA: San Andreas, I mean, how else do you get a Jetpack in the game? But that's beside the point, because Cheats in GTA are meant to be there, otherwise they wouldn't be so easily accessible. When you exploit a "flaw" in a game, you are taking away from what the creator intended for you to do. But, it's not my place to decide if it's right or wrong to exploit these, merely to state my opinion.

Nope.  It is generally agreed that exploiting design flaws or even glitches is not cheating, especially in the speed run community.  If you find a new glitch/design flaw that gives you an edge, kudos to you.  Now others will seek to exploit this glitch/design flaw in order to try to beat your time.  The fastest recorded and accepted completion of Ocarina of Time is 19 minutes, 5 seconds.  The vid is here: http://zeldaspeedruns.com/speedruns/5953

Many other such speed runs exist.

I know this is not answering the question, but let me bring up something interesting about design flaws.

Anyone heard for rocket jumping? The technique started out as a design flaw of Quake. However it is now considered a legit strategy, and is used in arena FPSes that allow it even today.

No, as the player, your goal may be to quickly win the game by yourself and your own knowledge as quickly and comprehensively as you can. If you can find a faster way to win the game by getting unlimited cash at a specific part, then that is the fault of the creators for making an easy game. 
Of course, some design flaws may make the game boring, so I'd choose not to use them. However, if it was for a timed game, you should do what is necessary to win. It's like Captain Kirk's famous no-win situation in which he ended up reprogramming the file to win.

Since the game is meant for one to win, it would just make gaming more complicated if you had to always think about whether taking easier routes would be cheating or not. By thinking it's up to the company to take the effort to make a better designed game, the burden is shifted from the player (who is supposed to be enjoying) to the companies themselves.
It's really the best games that have very little ways to exploit design flaws since they are designed so well.

DarkAssassinTZ : Oh, wow? A jet pack? I'm definitely going to try to get one. (In fact, I was playing GTA: SA for PC earlier today). 

Exploiting flaws is not cheating. At least as far as finishing the game, or getting further in it goes.

I have exploited a flaw in the arcade game Moon Cresta
Go to the far left or right on one level, (not saying the side or level)
You are then missed by the attackers nine times out of ten.

DarkAssassinTZ : I'm not sure if I think it's cheating or not, but I do agree with everything else you said. Typically I play through the game once without doing anything like that, then on the second run through, anything goes. I think that it takes away from the experience of the game, but the second time around, it's all about finding and exploiting secrets for kicks. lol

supernerd117 : Dude, that's insane! I have to watch that later.

I think that the "flaw" that you found was intended by the designers.

In OOT, there are way to many ways to fill up on rupees, so many ways that I'm aware of that in my latest difficulty run I had to restrict myself from them. Otherwise making money just isn't fun.

I wish more video games would make money more useful, rather than letting you get infinite amounts easily and making the money realatively useless.

In OOT, money is fairly useful, I mean, you can always buy bombs and deku nuts. But there are to many places that you can get infinite money!

Here are some:

In the ghosts shop owners room, there is one pot that always gives a red rupee.

In this same room, only in the past, before Ganon's reign, the room is filled with 30 or so pots, each pot contains a green rupee, or, more rarely, a blue rupee. So what you do is you charge up a spin attack and stand in the center of all the pots. Once the charge is full, unleash! You get about 30 rupees each time. Rinse and repeat for lot's of bomchu's.

Climbing the chains to the draw bridge in front of Hyrule castle grants you 20 rupees at the top of each chain. There is also and invisible red rupee centered above the arch of the castle town entrance that you can reach by jumping out to it.

The diving game gives ludicrous amounts of rupees after you beat it the first time. Sometimes the Zora even throws down purple rupees! @.@


A few  holes contain red rupees which respawn upon reentering the holes along with cows which may be milked.

That's pretty much all of the easy money in the game.

I wish that I could but more useful stuff in OOT though.
Eirrin, put that down for our PC game project!

I don't think exploiting flaws in a video game is considered cheating, I mean I won't do it during my first play through but I will after that. The kind of games I exploit these flaws in are Skyrim Borderlands and others like them. In Borderlands it's just to easy to find a piece of terrain you player can access but the NPCs cannot. As for Skyrim I exploit the fast lvl method that can be done during the attack on Helgen. I won't tell you what it is but I'll say it involves the Stormcloak start.

EideticMemory : CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG!