Gamers Cheat Because They Get Frustrated With Other Cheaters, Time2play Reports

Cheaters are annoying. It is impossible not to agree with this statement, and yet as many as 77% of gamers who participated in Time2play's survey, believe that cheating in video games, including both single player and multiplayer modes, is not a bad thing. The component results are as follows - 81% acceptance for cheats in single games and 59% in multiplayer titles. The survey also provides data on what cheats are most popular, describes the reasons for cheating, and creates a cheater profile based on the information gathered.

General data on cheating in games, source: https://time2play.com/blog/is-it-cheating/#goat-cheats

Cheater - frustrated zoomer

General data

According to Time2play, both men and women are similarly accepting of cheating in video games (taking into account both single player and multiplayer modes). The magic begins when the age of players is considered as a criterion.

1. 83% of so-called "zoomers" (people born between 1995 and 2010) do not consider cheating as something bad.
2. 77% of Millenials in accept cheating, while among previous generations, i.e. Gen X and Baby boomers - it's only 74%.

Below you will find the full cheater profile compiled by Time2play. It is also worth mentioning that PlayStation users are the most likely to find cheating acceptable. This is the opinion of 81% of them, while on PC it is 78%.

Source: https://time2play.com/blog/is-it-cheating/

I cheat, because it doesn't work for me!

Interesting data can also be found on the graphic concerning the motivation of cheaters and the most frequently used cheats. The study shows that players are most likely to cheat when:

1. they are frustrated - 49%,
2. they want to have more fun - 48%,
3. they want to keep up with other players who are cheating - 36%.

Among other reasons, players indicated that they cheat to: have it easier, unlock content, and because streamers cheat too.

If you look at the data more closely, you can see that cheaters kind of go in circles - they get frustrated, so they install "boosters". This behavior tugs on the nerves of other players, so they also decide to install cheats, because they do not want to differ from the rest. Oh, the vicious circle of hatred.

On the other hand, the most commonly used type of cheat, used by 37% of respondents is AI computer vision, which is, in simple words, a wall-hack. In second place are ex aequo aimbot and tiggerbot, which are used by 30% of players. The whole chart can be found here.

The best cheat

At this point, it is worth noting that players do not use "boosters" only in multiplayer games, but often also in single player titles. The best cheat of this type was Shelby Cobra for Age of Empires II, which - activated by typing "how do you turn this on" in the console - places an AC Cobra car unit on the map.

Source: https://time2play.com/blog/is-it-cheating/

Other data and research group

Among other information collected by Time2play, we can also find those regarding the punishments that cheaters face - both from the community and from the devs. There is also a chart raising the issue of consequences that professional players face when caught cheating. Graphs created by Time2play, along with a description and analysis, can be found here.

It's worth noting that the survey was compiled based on responses from 1019 US players. The exact breakdown of them by gender, generation and hardware platforms presents itself as follows: