@Sarge1387_PSN said:

A couple years ago, when cheating became rampant in CoD there was a really interesting study published by a Yale or Harvard psych student (if I can find it again I'll edit with a link). In a nutshell, they postulated that people cheat in video games because their every day life is severely lacking in accomplishment, and the cheating, whether it was Cronus or other 3rd party hardware, enabled them to achieve that "high" from seeing their name at the top of leaderboards.

It went into some really good depth about how they're subconsciously trying to make everyone in the video game as miserable as they are IRL, while simultaneously making themselves feel like they're actually accomplishing something.

It wasn’t Yale or Harvard but still a good abstract on the psychology behind cheating on video games

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10770842/

@StinkyMcPooter_XBL said:

I guess this is an existential question, but ... what's the point of cheating?

I can totally understand if you're farming stubs for cash. That is completely understandable.

I'm asking about regular Joes. You cheat to get more stubs. Use the stubs to get better players. Use the better players to build a better team ... to get more stubs?

I'm not a DD player, so I don't quite understand the whole cycle, but if you're using a tool to cheat, you're not really playing and makes the whole collecting stubs/players kind of pointless.

Maybe I'm just not getting the whole thing.

This is entirely the correct angle to take in response to the recent rise in cheating plus also those who did exploit a game code option to mine worthless virtual trinkets.

Vice get angry about it, the really intelligent reaction is to feel sorry for people whose lives are so empty that they define their living purpose by how many worthless virtual player card packs they can amass.

To be perfectly honest with you, given the raft of truly insane comments made here in recent days, it was refreshing and rejuvenating to see someone post truly intelligent commentary, such as you did just now. Now, I respectfully disagree with you in one respect, when you wrote, "Maybe I'm just not getting the whole thing." Brother, in my world, I think you have a very sharp grasp of the picture, a very complete picture.

Cheers!

This sounds about right. So for all of us calling those cheaters losers we are actually spot on. They are losers in real life so video games are all they have to try and feel good about. It’s pathetic and sad at the same time.

It went into some really good depth about how they're subconsciously trying to make everyone in the video game as miserable as they are IRL, while simultaneously making themselves feel like they're actually accomplishing something.

@On_a_Power_Trip_PSN said:

I’d say there’s some ‘the end justifies the means’ mentality with it. Quite a few of the online cheaters also get a kick out of simply handing out L’s or (worse) trolling/rage baiting.

This makes absolute sense. I was thinking more along the lines of playing the game.

I wasn't thinking about A-holes.