108 replies to this topic

[Grugore]

Every game has them. Even Mechwarrior. Cheaters. The question for me is why? This is just me talking, but If I had to cheat in order to compete with others, I wouldn't get any satisfaction out of it. Why do they do it? How would it feel to win knowing you're only second best? Is it a desire to dominate at all cost? Do most of them even consider it cheating? Do they do it just to **** people off? Why?

This is a serious question, and I'd like it to be treated as such. No trolls, please. Let me amend that. Trolls will be shot on site!

[Bloody Moon]

I think there are possibly two important reasons why someone would cheat:

1. He cares little about the how he only wants to win.
2. He does it only to troll others.

Then again i can only guess as i've never cheated before.

[Damascas]

Winning is winning to many people.

[Whippet]

the people that lookup to a winner is what drives the cheater the cheater loves the attention of victory even if it comes by cheating

Edited by Whippet, 14 July 2012 - 06:03 AM.

[bebopper]

the only reason I can think of for someone to cheat might be low selfesteam even then I dont think most people would get much out of a win if they had to cheat to get it

[Grugore]

But it's a false sense of accomplishment. How do they get any satisfaction out of it? That's what I don't get.

[Kampfer]

There are people who don't have the same sense of right and wrong when it comes to these sorts of things. Look at Wall Street for example, to a lot of these guys it has more to do with how clever they think they are than whether or not something they are doing is legal or illegal or more or immoral. They are clever enough to do it, and they will continue to do it until they can no longer get away with it.

[mullet steve]

what would you consider cheating? anything possible within the game would be considered to many as fair play even if dishonerable... hacking into the program and changing code I would consider absolute cheating...

Edited by mullet steve, 14 July 2012 - 06:13 AM.

[xti]

there are a couple of reasons i can think of:

1.advance faster - say you don´t have the money to buy a booster pack and feel handicapped - some could justify closing the gap for semselfes with cheating.

2.winning is hard - some cheaters believe they would win anyway, so why bother.(all imagination o.c.) it´s so demanding to win again and again - so they ease their burden with some cheats, it´s more relaxed to win this way.

3.if someone else does it i have to do it, too. this is a major reason, if other cheaters aren´t punished someone could justify cheating for himself as a tool to "just closing the gap".

4.griefers. maybe the main reason.almost nobody cheats against bots. their fun is to ruin the fun of others. it can be justified for them by a lot of reasons that doesn´t have to be gaming related. bullying in school, not enough attention from their parents / s.o.. frustration with the game itself. mobbing at work, whatever makes them feel their life sucks.

and like others said:
5. Achievement hunters / "attention whores". Bragging with stats and the attention the winner gets.

and antoher reason:

6. curiosity&fun: i´ve cheated before, in counterstrike beta 2.5 against some friends on a lanparty. around year 1999/2000. on the last day everybody (~14 man) just loaded his game up with as much cheats as he could find. it was hilarious, good old days

best regards.

edit: 1&3 are dominant for chash/economic cheats (item duping, gold hacking whatever) and botters
2&4 would be the major reason for performance enhancing or ridiculous cheats. instant killing/aimbots/wallhacks/submarine-over-your-head-spawning

Edited by xti, 14 July 2012 - 06:41 AM.

[Der Kopfsammler]

I think they do it because they want to win so bad on a certain game, but they lack the skills to do it... so they resort to cheats for it.

[William Denton]

Whippet, on 14 July 2012 - 06:02 AM, said:

the people that lookup to a winner is what drives the cheater the cheater loves the attention of victory even if it comes by cheating

I think you have a good point there. You could call them attention-"wh***s. Games with achievments reinforce this since the game calls you "most valuable player". That might go into the same direction

[Grugore]

Good feedback, so far. Thanks. And no trolls yet. How cool is that?

Edited by Grugore, 14 July 2012 - 06:17 AM.

[Viper69]

People have cheated since man has started keeping score. From stick ball to kick ball even connect four. If winning means more than the game itself is when cheaters arise. No amount of contemplation of the reasons for doing it will change their existence.

[Nikoliy]

Their is a difrent way to look at it... Alot of games use time sinks to compensate for lack of content. So people cheat to skip that (I do that). In a game like MWO its a little difrent... alot less to justify someone cheating. Perhaps a lack of skill or understanding of the game...

[Kier Ordo]

There are several distinct reasons for cheating that I can think of.

1. Entitlement. The cheater believes he deserves to win all the time and anything he has to do to make it happen is "right".

2. Trolling. Derives pleasure from tormenting others.. Needs to be publicly flogged.

3. Addicted to accomplishment/advancement. Like any other addiction, it must be fed.

4. "Everybody does it". In some cases a game allows cheating - this is the fault of the game itself and if the only way to win is by cheating, is it really cheating? (System Shock II comes to mind here - there is a reason the hardest setting is called "Impossible")

[Adridos]

Human psychology. There were always the "bad guys" who somehow justify their actions to themselves.

[Grugore]

mullet steve, on 14 July 2012 - 06:12 AM, said:

what would you consider cheating? anything possible within the game would be considered to many as fair play even if dishonerable... hacking into the program and changing code I would consider absolute cheating...

I'm referring to hacking.

[Chillybill]

There are many many reasons people may choose to follow the cheaters path but the one think the is a big part of the decision to cheat I think is that they do not fear the consequences of their actions!
If more was done to detect cheaters and the consequences for cheating were most severe then it is possible that cheating could be reduced.
I have seen cheaters in games where you couldn't even spend money, the game was free, nothing to buy ever, everyone has to do the training to get better weapons, etc. The only thing to be gained in the game from cheating is the "per match win" but yet they still do it because they do not fear the consequences. I have also see games that were strictly "pay to win" where people cheated and because they were "premium membership" the owners of the game wouldn't do anything about the cheating, i.e. no consequence.
So I think if IGN has a good method or methods in place to detect the scripts and bots and other methods of cheating that I am sure will show up here and dish out some severe consequences for cheating including a "no warning" policy I think I as well as a lot of other serious gamers will stay around a long time.
I am sure if I have to contend with cheaters everytime I play that no matter how much money I have spent on the game, no matter what I have got in the mech bay I will eventually just drop the game as cheaters spoil the fun for other gamers.

[Scimitar]

Honestly man I don't know why people feel the need to cheat. I guess some people just aren't as good as other players and just can't accept that =\

[Grugore]

Kier Ordo, on 14 July 2012 - 06:18 AM, said:

4. "Everybody does it". In some cases a game allows cheating - this is the fault of the game itself and if the only way to win is by cheating, is it really cheating? (System Shock II comes to mind here - there is a reason the hardest setting is called "Impossible")

Since you mention it, I have a friend who's played several online strategy games where cheating is rampant. admin doesn't care. They ignore repeated complaints from the other players. Take EVE online for example. The game is dying because the developers are also players, and have stacked the odds in their favor. Yes they cheat. Pretty sad.