You've probably encountered people who aggressively shame players who do things that are "cheap" or "cheesy" - effective, easy, often repetitive strats that let them win quickly & efficiently. In multiplayer games, this scrub mentality is mocked & discouraged.
In single player games, on the other hand, this mentality doesn't really get much resistance - you will often see players shaming others for spamming moves, looping or exploiting enemy AI, using powerful gear, using summons, etc.
As meaningless as this seems outside of the context of PvP, I think it has several negative long-term consequences for both devs & players.
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This creates a culture of peer pressure that blames gamers for playing the games in a way that makes sense internally/formally. Instead of trying to get developers to adjust the formal reward/punishment systems or balance of games, players try to create their own meta-ruleset and enforce it via peer pressure. It's group vs group shaming essentially.
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It creates illusions - imaginary games born out of people's theorycrafting, and not sober analysis. Developers want their games to appear complex & deep because it'll draw in new players. Engaged players want the games they play to feel complex & deep because it makes them feel smart & cool. It's in both groups' interest to try and overcomplicate things. Cheesy strats run against this, they simplify games and expose their barebones core.
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It makes both balance and difficulty either stagnate, or decline. Most singleplayer games, unlike PvP, don't truly have a strong pressure to be balanced or difficult. How are developers going to learn how to create effective depth, or how to make fun types of difficulty, if the players don't push back on the games?
This of course has exceptions - arcade games famously earned money in small part because of how balanced & difficult they were. MMO raids & some early access games also have this sort of tug of war design because players compete against the developers. In general, the strongest most developed genres & styles of games tend to have this element. But if players don't feel like breaking games, how is this advancement supposed to happen?
I think the result of all of this is ultimately worse games that rely on creating illusions of complexity, depth, Bigness to cover up how barebones they are when you take their mechanics to their logical conclusion. It creates an illusion of advancement in the field, even when the fundamentals stagnate or even decline.
It also covers up the fact that complexity has a cost - if first order optimal strats should be avoided by default, then games that intentionally keep things simpler for tighter balance will always be at a disadvantage when compared to complex, bloated messes. A real tradeoff of game design becomes a no brainer. And of course it creates some very annoying fans.
So if you're convinced, consider counter-shaming the shamers & encouraging the most ruthless, cold, aggressive cheese!
