yonatan8070 14 hours ago

The amount of effort, time, and money people put into cheating is honestly insane.

A 14 year old who installs an autoclicker to mess with friends or randoms online I can get. But there are fully grown adults who dedicate their time and substantial amounts of money (whole second computer) just to win in online video games?

What's the motivation/justification for spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on cheating hardware and software? Are these just super-rich people who have more money than sense?

  • technothrasher 10 hours ago

    I haven't paid much attention to any of it, as I don't really like multiplayer games anyway, but I always just assumed many people figure out how to cheat simply as a meta-game. I mean, how can you ask what the motivation to cheat is without asking what the motivation to even play the game in the first place is? Barring professional competition, both playing and cheating are largely meaningless activities outside the simple enjoyment.

  • RugnirViking 13 hours ago

    A bit of both. Some very clever people, often in Russia or Philippines or Venezuela etc where incomes and legal risks are low make the cheats, and sell them to idiots in the west.

  • swagmoney1606 5 hours ago

    You don't neeed DMA hardware btw. Just find a signed driver that's vulnerable to run whatever you want... Also, not hard at all. I guarantee you have a driver you could re-purpose on your windows machine right now.

  • quantummagic 12 hours ago

    > What's the motivation/justification...

    No doubt there are various reasons, some more understandable than others. There are some fascinating historical cases, like the one explored in "The King of Kong" :

    https://youtu.be/_4v15X8Px34

    Which is well worth a watch, if you're curious.

  • snickerdoodle12 8 hours ago

    do you not have any hobbies? cheat development is insanely fun

    • yonatan8070 4 hours ago

      Of course I have hobbies, and they cost me money. I just make sure my hobbies aren't ruining the fun for everyone around me.