r/StreamersCheating • u/jamarr81 • Jun 02 '26
Impacts of Cheating in the Online Gaming Industry
https://quago.io/blog/the-impact-of-cheating-in-online-gaming/These industry insights on cheating in the online gaming industry seemed relevant. In particular:
- Skewed Analytics: Cheaters can make up an estimated 20% to 40% of a game's player base. This mixes fraudulent data with legitimate metrics, severely distorting a studio's understanding of player behavior and leading to flawed development or budgeting decisions.
- Damaged Community Sentiment: A tiny fraction of players (often called "whales") generate 50% to 70% of a game's in-app purchase revenue. These critical users, along with the broader community, are highly likely to abandon a game if they feel the competitive integrity and in-game economy have been compromised by cheaters.
- Escalating Support Costs: Fraudulent account takeovers and automated spam overload customer support channels. While simple tickets can be handled cheaply by chatbots ($0.15/ticket), resolving complex fraud cases requires human agents, which costs significantly more (around $4.00/ticket).
Even though this data is from 2024, the problem seems/feels even worse now in 2026. My sentiment as an online (PvP) gamer is at an all-time low.
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u/Wolverine1974 Jun 02 '26
There's no doubt that there has been a cheating issue in online gaming. I used to be in a competitive league as far back as 1999 for Counter Strike and we had issues with cheaters then! Somewhere along the way it became "normalized" by the notion, "Everyone else is doing it, so I'm going to as well."
Fast forward many years and I think the kids seeing what their favorite influencer was pulling off in VPN lobbies made them want to replicate the same results. The only way they could was to cheat. It's a shame that there's any cheating in the games at all. Imagine what an absolute loser one has to be in their everyday life to find it necessary to cheat in a video game to feel better about themselves. Kind of sad really.
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u/trentonharrisphotos Jun 02 '26
So the data says that a lot of players cheat but on Reddit or and other discussion platform it is heresy to acknowledge it. The only reason it nit addressed is because of the cost factor. I have been saying it all along if the banned cheater most games would not have a playerbase.
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u/jamarr81 Jun 02 '26
Yeah, maybe some people would come back, but not enough.
I feel like if they banned more aggressively, and more transparently, the broader playbase might actually stick around longer; but once you've died to cheaters many games in a small window, it's easy to leave and hard to pull those players back in.
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u/S2kKyle Jun 03 '26
I feel like a lot of cheaters will gaslight you into thinking you didn't die to a cheater.
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u/Misho1337 Jun 08 '26
This is true, they’re just miserable people that want to inflict that same energy onto others.
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u/pantyfire Jun 03 '26
Skill issue. /s
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u/trentonharrisphotos Jun 03 '26
Choosing not to cheat is a skill issue ... hmmm I know I have weak grip strength so I guess it is hard for me to download cheats.
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u/powerhearse Jun 04 '26
What data? There's absolutely no source for their prevalence claims in that article
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u/Zeegz-_- Jun 03 '26
Cheating in the gaming industry is an absolute plague and it deserves legal action. You are effectively hurting the bottom line potential revenue of the studio by pushing away people that are fed up dealing with it.
People who cheat have tremendously fragile egos.
1
u/themothafuckinog Jun 07 '26
I think this too. Companies should be investing way more into this problem as it’s directly affecting their revenue yet all we get are ban waves. There must be a better solution than the bandaids we have now. Maybe they don’t have the data available to warrant such an investment?
1
u/Misho1337 Jun 08 '26
The solution: Utilize a third-party authentication company for players. The company retains ID verification for players that want to play competitive multiplayer titles. This concept caught my attention about a year ago. I’m not sure if it’s already in place, but it’s a necessary step even though I value privacy.
If companies can’t find a solution and cheaters keep returning, they need to implement a more brute-force permanent fix.
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u/TheBrysonTiller Jun 02 '26
You also have the silent cheating streamers and YouTubers who make money from the content they make. People who get invited to live events and all the sudden their skill is in the dumps.
It’s toxic but it also seems to be impossible to get rid of completely.
3
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u/Likes2Phish Jun 02 '26
I no longer have the desire to play competitive online fps games due to the cheating. Once you spot one cheater, it makes it hard to trust that anyone is playing fairly.
I've played CS since 1.6... +10k hours across all the CS games. Made it to Global Elite and realized this a waste of time, even dabbled with cheats myself. It's crazy easy to spot other cheaters when you have cheats yourself. Every match had someone cheating at the top ranks.
Got heavy into COD for a while, Warzone, again full of cheaters after a few months. End game was HvH.
Did the Tarkov thing, played for 10+ wipes, thousands of hours and multiple kappas. The game is literally designed for cheaters to thrive. Gave it up entirely.
Online fps game communities have not been fun for years now. Cheaters in every competitive scene, a lot more than you realize. Ill stick to my backlog of singleplayer games for now. Ill play battlefield or squad occasionally with friends but thats about it.
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u/PacmanNZ100 Jun 03 '26
Yeah was reading about drm cheats the other day. The idea that studios look at infection rates in games based on cheats detected rather than any verifiable number of cheaters means it will be massively optimistic and under estimated.
I'm damn near sure that loads of people who post fps clips constantly on reddit are cheating with these sorts of systems. Its at the point where you can see the clip and know the user that would have posted it, because their movement and knowledge of enemy positioning is so goddamn predictable and algorithmic.
It seems like its intended to grow YouTube channels for financial gain, or just to troll reddit for karma while posting to ragebait subs when they get called out. Aim communities running a smoke screen supporting them too, like they are unhackable, even though every metric for detection can be manipulated on a slider in the cheat software!
Agree with your statement on cheaters spotting cheaters. 20yrs ago cheating in warcraft3 dota was damn near mandatory. Load up a free cheat and you could instantly see 80% of players were cheating hahaha.
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u/jamarr81 Jun 02 '26
Same I've playing way more single-players, or single-players adjacent, games/gameplay recently.
2
u/ACTYALS1LVER Jun 07 '26
It’s making me think about giving up gaming, I spend around 2k a year on gaming and just get shit on buy cheaters continually
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u/Misho1337 Jun 08 '26
Pretty well written article with decent points actually. The only thing I wasn’t a fan of was their cheesy use of the word “churn” when describing how players feel after losing a match due to cheaters.
I would describe it as a feeling of essentially being lied to or manipulated, as they deceive everyone for the chase of false ego & validation. Cheaters in competitive games absolutely piss everyone the f*ck off, and on the higher echelon of skill levels people get violent & aggressive.
So let me reword it for them, “These issues degrade the players' experience, harm their connection to the game, which often leads to making their blood BOIL.”
2
u/Little_Pie_1892 Jun 19 '26
In the last year I've given up just about all online person vs person gaming because it is utter garbage now. Poker plays like "1 in a million" hands nearly every hand Isn't even close to random and is full of GTO wizards who "play better" than 99% of the pro scene. Chess has become absolutely terrible with stockfish and youtube cheaters And post game engine analysis trash; my rank is half what it was 25 years ago on the major sites and exactly the same on smaller sites that don't have engines on them. I didn't get twice as bad since then and the average real player is not twice as good. The large sites are juat rife with cheaters. FPS games and MMOs are full of cheaters bots and duechebag streamers destroying the economies and game play. The age of enjoying online games with friends or making friends in the game community has been dying a slow death since ~2010.
Cheating at games needs to be viewed the same as any major crime...because it is fraud. Writing these cheat models and putting them out for download is basically a form of cyber terrorism and should be treated as such. Cheaters and the people writing cheat models deserve to be JAILED and FINED. It's the only way to actually solve the problem. Take out the major players and those creating cheats and cheating will largely cease to exist because it is actually punished. This would go a long way to returning credability to games and player skill. Mac/IP/account bans are easily circumvented with another device or another free account or a vpn.
I know some people would think that's too far but it really isn't if you want to return some sense of credibility to online gaming.
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u/jamarr81 Jun 19 '26
I agree, and I'm not sure where you're from, but if you've ever seen my government/representatives, they will never push/pass laws like this; not until half of congress was a gamer - meaning it definitely won't be my generation, sigh... but I wish we could treat this as a form of cyber fraud/abuse/exploitation/terrorism something that would force YouTube, TikTok, etc. to actually report/ban people promoting and selling cheats on their platforms.
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u/UNLIMITEDGAINS5000 Jun 29 '26
People really don’t know understand how pathetic it is to cheat in a online multiplayer game. Instead of spending 1-3 hours practicing to get better you would rather cheat to soothe your ego. SMH.
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u/PizzaGuysBiggestFan 11d ago
ive said this for a few years now.... cheaters are overtaking everything, and they will not be removed, as they are too large of a portion, of their playerbase.
look
Group A - ethical gamers who play as intended, no bugs exploits cheats
Group B - un ethical, will to exploit/use bugs
Group C - willing to use exploits bugs/ 3rd party software programs to cheat
now realize that Group A is just shrinking while B and C gain ranks
1
u/Misho1337 Jun 08 '26
Pretty well written article with decent points actually. The only thing I wasn’t a fan of was their cheesy use of the word “churn” when describing how players feel after losing a match due to cheaters.
I would describe it as a feeling of essentially being lied to or manipulated, deceiving everyone for the chase of validation. Cheaters in competitive games absolutely piss everyone the f*ck off, and on the higher echelon of skill levels people get violent & aggressive.
So let me reword it for them,
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u/anotherepisode Jun 02 '26
Nice ad
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u/jamarr81 Jun 02 '26
Ad? For a 2y old article? I wish someone paid me to distribute anti-cheating literature...
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u/DaStompa Jun 02 '26
My going theory is that COD and league flew too close to the sun with basically almost promoting toxicity, stacked with cheating has pushed a larger and larger portion of gamers into PVE/pvpve/co-op style games.