PC Gamer - Hacks! An investigation into the $1M business of video game cheating

Just because you don't understand why some do what they do doesn't mean it has to be an all or nothing thing. I personally never used auto-fire ever, if for no other reason that that I didn't want to get banned.

I used the radar all the time (great to flush out snipers, get insight into whether a choke is an ambush, etc). I also used the warning indicator that says if someone is aiming at you, and I used the aimbot without auto-fire because auto-fire isn't necessary to kill someone. Use the radar to find out where they are, shoot a few times into the general direction, then mouse-button to snap to target and manually shoot to kill. Good times! I vividly recall using the radar to let myself be killed by the same guy over and over, the team chat in response to that happening was hilarious.

To me hacking wasn't about having great stats, my K/D was average at best. I did it for the LOLs I got out of it.

I don't say or think that everything in life is all or nothing. But for 1 cheaters have close to zero credibility, they are people who's very existence in a game and online is a completely fabricated lie. And they are naive enough to think they can come in and claim whatever they want and people will believe them. I think many people don't believe a word self proclaimed cheaters say about their own motivations.

All I am saying is even if you are honest you are not representative of the larger hacking community. There is no silent majority of hackers who hold back on hacks and just screw around. The holding back most hackers do is just to avoid detection by admins or software.
 
As long as there have been video games, there have been cheaters.

Cheaters in mp games and sp games aren't the same: There is nothing wrong in most case to cheat in sp games; Not the case in mp games.
 
If most pros cheat then how do they do it at LANS?

They don't, well, depending on the LAN they don't. But if by professional you mean circuit gamers that are in sponsored teams who go to tournaments, those are cheat free. If you mean high ranked players in competitive matchmaking then more than likely 1/4th of those people were boosted or cheating in some way.
 
They don't, well, depending on the LAN they don't. But if by professional you mean circuit gamers that are in sponsored teams who go to tournaments, those are cheat free.

This actually is not true.

You might think LANs are safe but even in the earliest days there have been hacks designed specifically for LANs with basically "stealthed" interfaces.

There is also the issue (another controversial area) of getting an advantage via other means, such as certain substances.
 
This is one of the reasons why I stopped playing multiplayer games in general.

Not everyone you come across cheats though... Don't get me wrong you'll eventually come across the guy that it's more important to ruin other peoples experience in gaming than have a good gaming experience of their own.

Sometimes I wonder if other game developers purposely develop cheats in their competitors games to give the game a bad reputation or press.
 
So whats the difference between charging for a game mod and cheat now?

If people can charge for cheats than why not other 3rd party mods?
 
This actually is not true.

You might think LANs are safe but even in the earliest days there have been hacks designed specifically for LANs with basically "stealthed" interfaces.

There is also the issue (another controversial area) of getting an advantage via other means, such as certain substances.

Well by LAN tournaments I meant circuit professionally hosted ones which require competition PCs that are set up specifically for the event. Public LANs do have their fair share of hackers I am sure of it. Gaming enhancement drugs are something completely different lol even caffeine can fall under that category in my opinion.
 
I don't say or think that everything in life is all or nothing. But for 1 cheaters have close to zero credibility, they are people who's very existence in a game and online is a completely fabricated lie. And they are naive enough to think they can come in and claim whatever they want and people will believe them. I think many people don't believe a word self proclaimed cheaters say about their own motivations.

All I am saying is even if you are honest you are not representative of the larger hacking community. There is no silent majority of hackers who hold back on hacks and just screw around. The holding back most hackers do is just to avoid detection by admins or software.

I am guilty of that, my entire teen childhood was devoted to cheating and hacking, even ended up a moderator of a still very popular gaming cheat forum. I regret nothing, the community was great and I had fun doing it, learned a lot aswell about programming and game development. I just finally grew up and realized the only person I was really cheating was myself. I can't cheat in games anymore, I find it boring and I just shrug at every cheater I encounter. I just don't care anymore for MP FPS games and cheating was probably the reason for it. Long live strategy games!
 
Also risking a steam account with over $2000 in games isn't worth it either. :D
 
I am partially with NickJames. I too don't cheat in MP anymore but primarily because I stopped playing PvP or Team MP games because there is so much cheating.

I know it sounds crazy, someone who cheats stopped playing because of cheats. But think about it this way, since I know that those who are good at cheating will never be caught/banned I know that there will never be a level playing field. I had a lot of fun with cheating and I am not with Nick in saying that I cheated on myself. I didn't pad my stats, I didn't pretend to be good, I just enjoyed the game the way I played it for what it was. I haven't run a hack since BF2 and BFH. I have no regrets and I'd do it again, though I will say that even though I did play BF2 off and on for a couple of years it did eventually become boring even with the hacks.

Fast forward, along comes RUST, which I found to have an interesting concept though even under the best of circumstances it puts casual players at a severe disadvantage. Worst yet, I checked the site where I used to buy my hacks, and I saw that the hack that I loved so much works in RUST as well.

Knowing that RUST is hackable by this particular hack removed any thought of buying RUST. There is no point to buy it if someone with the hack can just see all my stuff, loot my containers through walls (that's been fixed now I think), etc. etc., so instead of raging about it I simply didn't buy it and put 200 hours into Anno 2070 instead.

You cannot prevent cheaters from playing. VAC and FF are completely ineffective at keeping those with paid hacks out of the game. The only thing you can do is to not buy games for which those professional hacks exist and play something else instead.
 
I had my fun but once I realized everyone else was doing it then it just became less fun. Eventually I became bored with the idea of cheating because the game I spent $60 on was broken by them and I could never challenge myself anymore on a level playing field. That's why I tend to host LAN parties now instead of playing competitively online.
 
Also risking a steam account with over $2000 in games isn't worth it either. :D

if they were smart then you would not USE a $2000 account for hacks but legit play. Only a new one that the dirty deed gets done on.... then buy 5x of it in different single accounts.
 
Last edited:
If most pros cheat then how do they do it at LANS?

Lans arent a common thing anymore. Its mostly all online. Most pros dont become noobs when they turn the cheats off either. They can still play the game. They dont use auto aim or anything like that because its to obvious. They use walling and no recoil. I remember back in the CAL days a team was using remade maps with the walls that were made see through while the other team used the real map. Thats when the server variable came in that forced the same map for both sides and checked for consistency.

Sorry it was late at night. I didnt buy them. It was a free trial. Thats likely why i was caught and banned.
 
I just finally grew up and realized the only person I was really cheating was myself.

onogyBE.jpg
 
Well by LAN tournaments I meant circuit professionally hosted ones which require competition PCs that are set up specifically for the event. Public LANs do have their fair share of hackers I am sure of it. Gaming enhancement drugs are something completely different lol even caffeine can fall under that category in my opinion.

From what I recall I remember hearing about cases of actually cheaters being caught (and by this assume some likely have slipped through as well) at actual professional LAN events, although I'm not sure if in this cases whether or not the machines were are all supplied/checked. I don't really follow this stuff (either hacking/cheating or competitive gaming) anymore, and so are not really up to date.

Regarding the latter point this really does bring up the issue of what one would actually consider a cheat. Even in terms of software assistance at what point (and this will differ from individual to individual) should it be considered cheating? Are aids like macros/scripts or on screen timers, both of which automate otherwise manual actions, cheating?
 
if they were smart then you would not USE a $2000 account for hacks but legit play. Only a new one that the dirty deed gets done on.... then buy 5x of it in different single accounts.

I was 12 years old, I didn't have the money to rebuy accounts. I've had the same steam account for almost 7 years (original one got disabled because I supposedly hijacked someones account which was BS) and so I have slowly built this account overtime.. It wasn't the thrill of hacking or making people ragequit why I cheated, I just liked seeing my stats increase and being on top of the boards which is why I stealth cheated. Now people buy up CS:GO copies for $2 when they're on sale and make boosting accounts and sell their boosting services in competitive matchmaking. I could never have done that back in the day, I could barely afford one copy of Half-Life 2 there's no way I would buy multiple ones.
 
Back
Top