Lost Universe is a geek merch site, with a Cyber Monday page and fresh research on computer games.
We’ve got professional counsellors and psychologists looking at the issue of computer game cheating for us. Let’s dig into it.
In a blog post, the geeks over there admit to discussing whether the developers of upcoming releases like Battlefield and Halo will be able to keep up with aimbots and wallhacks.
This prompted us to do some research about cheaters in gaming, as we wanted to find out which game has the most cheaters. Is it Warzone, a game notorious for having a huge hacking problem over the last year? Or maybe it’s Minecraft, a game less associated with cheating that has a huge player base.
The team there used search frequencies against player numbers to work out what the cheater ratio was. For example, if Game X had 100 players and Lost Universe could see 50 searches for “Game X cheats”, they would have given that a 50% of the player base is a cheater ratio.
| Game | Global Players | Players Cheating | % Of Player Base |
|---|---|---|---|
| GTA | 140m | 16,296,000 | 11.64% |
| CSGO | 43m | 988,800 | 2.47% |
| Dota 2 | 13m | 169,200 | 1.30% |
| Among Us | 500m | 5,317,200 | 1.06% |
| COD: Warzone | 100m | 762,000 | 0.77% |
| Minecraft | 600m | 2,628,000 | 0.40% |
| Apex Legends | 100m | 368,400 | 0.37% |
| Fortnite | 350m | 939,600 | 0.27% |
| PUBG | 1,037m | 1,510,800 | 0.15% |
| World of Warcraft | 100m | 283,200 | 0.23% |
| League of Legends | 111m | 232,800 | 0.20% |
| Rocket League | 75m | 58,200 | 0.08% |
It’s a methodology, I suppose, and hopefully more prone to overcounting than under. The research was restricted to 20 nations and, as it happens, Spain and Poland are odd in that Among Us had more people searching for hacks and cheats there. Everywhere else, it was GTA.
Psychologist and personality expert, Cynthia Harlow, was asked to comment as to why people cheat in the first place. Is it just to win?
Quite simply put, people cheat for their self-esteem. You will find that the majority of those who cheat in things as simple as video games do it to make themselves feel better. It is a means of rubbing their own egos and gaining self-confidence.
These are people who will never accept losing and resort to cheating to completely avoid it. When a person with high self-esteem and self-worth loses a game, they simply accept their loss and make it an aim to do better. As for those who get cheated on, it makes them lose the excitement that they get from playing these games because the other party isn’t being fair.”
Pareen Sehat MC, RCC, runs a streaming channel, clashes with cheaters and is also a Clinical Counsellor. Pareen added;
They put various mods and cheats that assist them in playing; it is unfair to other gamers and disrespectful to people who have worked hard to develop their skills. They steer clear of hard work and commitment in everything, and they do not care about the game or respect the rest of its players. Cheating in a game can have adverse effects on other players, as they may find it unfair and feel frustrated. When hackers outplay them, they may be tempted to use cheat codes as well.”
If it’s all about self-esteem, then what can we conclude about GTA players? Especially as it has 140 million of them.
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Photo credit: Simon Abrams.
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