@Khuutra

No it is the only argument that matters, and your technicality fails. Whether I shoot someone or hand someone else the gun doesn't change the fact that I am guilty of murder. Not getting their hands dirty doesn't mean it isn't happening without their full consent.

Your argument about meta knowledge dodges the real issue. Who is exactly being cheated. Once again you cannot cheat yourself. This entire meta knowledge argument of yours is taking place only within your head. I am sorry if you think games are real worlds, and your summoning super natural powers to your aid, but they are not.

You can't equate cheating with murder, that's utterly ridiculous. I mean, really, truly absurd. I don't even know what you're trying to say there, you have left me cross-eyed.

Who's being cheated? The system. Cheating in itself denotes the idea that you are operating outside of the bounds of the system that has been set down for you, and yes, metaknowledge is included in operating outside of the bounds of that. It's cheating even if they let you do it when you feel like it (just like NTHGTHDGDCRTDTRK was a cheat in Turok even though it was coded into the game)

The metaknowledge argument isn't just within his head.  It's within my head as well, because it's within the discourse of game theory.  I got to attend a lecture on this at school about a month ago.

While you play a game, there are 3 worlds going on:

1) The world of the game's story (you're fighting some bad guy to save the world).  To use film terms, this is called the diegetic world (any time you see and hear somebody play a guitar in Chrono Cross or Majora's Mask or a warp whistle in SMB3 or the first Zelda).

2) The world of the game outside the story (menus of stats, tutorials, experience points, leveling up system, save points, save files, ability to pause the game, options menus, achievements/trophies/challenges, etc).  To use film terms again, this is called the non-diegetic world (any time you hear random mood music, or battle music, or leveling up sound effects that the characters shouldn't be able to hear or know about themselves).  Anything that the player knows about, but the characters within the story don't know about, is non-diegetic.  It's in the game, but not in "the game world."

3) The real world, outside the game (knowledge you bring to the game yourself about the genre, or from strategy guides, or music you have playing somewhere else in the house outside of the game entirely).

You use the menus and stats and points to give yourself the advantage in battles so you can move the story forward.  You may also bring knowledge from the outside world (like from GameFAQs) to help you manage the menus and stats, or to find a secret item.  But that is entirely outside of the game itself.  Somebody else played the game, wrote a walkthrough, and shared it with you.  The game doesn't know about this.  You brought extra knowledge to the game.

Walkthroughs are typically found in single player or coop games. It doesn't matter if it's cheating or not, because it doesn't affect other people. You are only 'cheating' yourself. It does only matter in competitive multiplayer games.

edit: After reading some of the other posts I realized that I just don't take gaming as seriously as other gamers (maybe that's what divides players into casuals and hardcore - I'm clearly casual).

What I do take more seriously is the competition with other people, and there I dislike cheating. But gathering information (like reading about strategies) even then I don't think is cheating. Learning strategies about poker isn't cheating. Pulling a card out of your sleeve is.

in the second run to complete 100% (mostly for objectives where you have to collect stuff).

But at the first play through i wanna enjoy the game and dont want to get distracted by reading some walkthrough every 5min in order to miss something out.

Rubang sir you are much more eloquent on this front than I am. I gues education does a lot!

Most of the time I only use them to find collectibles. They are nearly always a waste of time finding them, it is just generally pointless. I do go to them if I am stuck, but most of the time I try and stay away

I do nearly always buy them for jRPGs though. I played the first half of Infinite Undiscovery without one, and I just felt like I was missing out on so much, it is worth the extra £10 to get a good strategy guide to help me find everything

Well if someone wants to ruin a game for themselves, then Walkthrough's are fine, i dont really see it as cheating, more as spoiling the fun.

I have no idea why companies put in things like this, beyond stupidity 

@ Khuutra

We all know that you love FFXII, or at the very least think it is underrated. You don't need to (and shouldn't) defend the game over that design choice.