How Do We Deal With Cheaters?

Ever since computer games have existed, the people who have played them have found ways to modify the game in order to change the way it plays or break the rules in the hopes of appearing to be better at the game. The concept of changing took on a whole new idea when online multiplayer games were created, now people not only cheated to beat the game, they also were able to cheat in order to compete better against other real people. Cheating in multiplayer online games has become very commonplace and most competitive games now have some sort of anti-cheat in order to curb the effects of cheating in their games. Cheating occurs when players are given the ability to do so and people believe they will be better off utilizing cheats, this comes to directly affect the gameplay experienced by the other players within the game and ends up creating a net negative experience overall, because of this net negative effect, those who choose to cheat in online games must be punished somehow, anti-cheat programs and banning of users are the common solution. In this paper I will be exploring how players cheat within online video games, how it affects the other players, why cheaters must be punished, and how games go about doing this