Cheaters

Cheaters aka @#%%@

Do cheaters get enjoyment from playing the game?

Do they need to have an unfair advantage over others?

Are they doing it for the "lulz" ?

Having spent years playing online games I have to say that cheaters fall into 3 different categories.

1. People that do it because they can and do not care that it ruins the game for others.
2. People that do it "for the lulz."
3. People that do it because they feel that everyone else is.

People that do it because they can are usually the casual gamers. They do not think about other gamers because they do not interact with them so it is not something that even occurs to them. I believe this is a very small minority of the cheaters out there. Most of them will deny that they are cheating and either leave or suddenly start playing very badly for a while. They do understand that it is wrong, they just do not see why it should matter.

The people that do it for the "lulz" remind me of the 13 and 14 year olds that act out to get attention from their parents. There are thousands of books on how to handle children that act out. Sadly, those books do not apply here because you cannot take the player to Disney Land for good behavior. These players are the majority. You will hear them bragging and taunting other players. The only way to effectively deal with these players is to ignore them. I usually end up switching servers or logging out for a while when I encounter these types of players. Even if you ignore them, chances are someone else will not and the person nerd raging at them just encourages them. As a side note, most of these players will deny doing it for attention, they will say they are doing it because it is funny when people get angry at them. These are the same kids you remember in preschool that would cry for hours when the teacher took their building blocks away. Trust me.

The people that do it because they think everyone else does it are the ones that run into the second group all the time and decide that everyone must do it. They are usually new to a game or to gaming in general. This group usually either gets banned or decides to stop cheating after a while. They are not doing it because they want to beat everyone or because they are jerks. They are just doing it because they do not know any better and think that it is something everyone does.

In summary, the only group of cheaters that really need to turn in their gamepad are the people in the second group. Casual gamers do not play enough to be an issue and the people in the third group are actually kind of useful because they show other people that you do not have to cheat to play against others.

It is a video game. If you are going into rages when you see someone cheating you should probably log out and get some fresh air.

It is a video game. Remember that you are not the only person playing, imagine how you would feel if you were playing dodgeball and the other team was using bean bag guns.