Comment by thesuitonym 9 days ago
I just don't understand the mentality. Sure, I can see how it can be fun to make an aimbot, and I can see how playing with it for a little while might be fun--or more accurately funny. But I just don't understand why you would routinely sit down with an aimbot. Why not just watch someone else play at that point?
Maybe the Octalysis Framework? That is the most well known material that covers this tangentially. There are a good number of whitepapers on this type of research in Adtech/Social Media, though you need to know the specialized language they use to search for it.
This is not a new concept, in fact many games and apps use this research which includes sophisticated operant conditioning to induce associations, which then later trigger dopamine spikes through those associations.
Its why people who spend most of their time gaming or using their phones start acting like junkies. Its completely destroyed the dating scene because they do this in dating apps. Nothing is a bigger turn off then dating a junky, and they often don't even realize it.
Much of this type of game design material has been rebranded from its original contextual use. It originates in PoW torture camps during the Korean Conflict, and narcosynthesis/narco-analysis was known all the way back to WW2.
Victims are easily controllable, misled, and often gullible, since rational thought is greatly reduced as they fall into an involuntary state of hypnosis and become highly suggestible.
Brain development to combat addiction also doesn't fully develop until your early 20s for most.
You see this element embedded in almost any FPS that has an audio trigger associated with a headshot. I know for a fact BF1942 did this with a cha-ching sound. Games, and apps too.
For a single player game, that might be a good explanation.
For a multiplayer game, though, it's not hard at all to see what's happening. If a cheater cheats and gets away with it, then they rationally should expect to receive social reputational credit, which I want to believe is something that instinctively makes most of us feel good, us being social creatures.
Why would people take performance enhancing drugs, why would you drink coffee, why would people use AI even when it's banned? It's all about getting ahead in a competitive environment. Games are just as 'real' as the real world to the people who play them. Cheats can be on the continuum of a really fast PC and a quality mouse - taken too far. They are even the kind of thing that happens when two nations are at war - no holds barred. Famous Tour de France riders, I don't think cheated only for the money. It was also for the glory.
>I just don't understand the mentality. Sure, I can see how it can be fun to make an aimbot, and I can see how playing with it for a little while might be fun--or more accurately funny. But I just don't understand why you would routinely sit down with an aimbot. Why not just watch someone else play at that point?
Vindication. The average cheat buyer is someone who gets beat down in the game, and feels personally slighted. This is also why avoiding detection is more important than just worrying about bans. The whole point of modern cheating is to be subtle enough to pass yourself off as a top player, with all the social/financial perks that entails, not to run around in god mode griefing people.
Why would people take performance enhancing drugs, why would you drink coffee, why would people use AI to do coding assignments even when it's banned? It's all about getting ahead in a competitive environment. Games are just as 'real' as the real world to the people who play them.
I forget where I read this, but somehow, some people have the "brain stimuli award" associated with the "winning" aspect even when they are using cheats. So winning is winning.
I'm still having hard time believing in this, but I haven't found better explanation for cheaters.