Why Do Some Users Become Enticed to Cheating in Competitive Online Games? An Empirical Study of Cheating Focused on Competitive Motivation, Self-Esteem, and Aggression

Abstract

Cheating, the act of winning in a competition based on unfair advantages over one’s opponents, often occurs in online games (e.g., illegal money exchange, account hacking, and exploiting a bug). With the recent flourishing of competitive tournament games online, such as League of Legends (LoL) and Overwatch, cheating has emerged as a serious problem since it not only promotes the de-socialization of gamers but also adversely affects game brands. However, there has little research on this issue in studies on competitive online games. Focused on three psychological factors (i.e., competitive motivation, self-esteem, and aggression), which has been reported to be primarily related to cheating in sports, this paper presents a study that empirically examined the associations between the factors and cheating in competitive online game environments. From survey data of 329 LoL gamers in South Korea, a structural equation model was analyzed. The results showed that gamers with a high degree of competitive motivation are more inclined to cheat in the game. Aggression increased cheating behavior and had a significant relationship with competitive motivation. Self-esteem decreased the degree of cheating but did not affect competitive motivation. Notably, gaming time negatively influenced cheating. The practical implications of these study results were discussed.

Online Gaming and Personality: Explaining Gamers’ Cheating Intention

“…Apart from perceptions and thoughts, as suggested in previous research (S. J. Lee et al, 2021), personality predisposes some gamers to cheat when playing online games. This knowledge is relevant as it indicates that these gamers will cheat irrespectively of their perceptions, thoughts, and what their social environment expects from them.…”

An Investigation Into the Attitudes of Virtual Cycling Participants Regarding Avatar Bodyweight Manipulation and Weight Doping

“…For example, comments related to individuals cheating themselves which is related to enhancing self-esteem or that cheating could be motivated by a competitive advantage arising from a need to compare themselves with others. This relates to the work by Lee et al (2021) who researched why people playing online games were motivated to cheat, finding that there were three main factors, boosting self-esteem, being competitive, and a tendency to be aggressive. While our research did not aim to address motivations to cheat in e-cycling, further research to explore this would be helpful.…”

The influence of psychological needs and motivation on game cheating: insights from self-determination theory

“…Cheating in online competitive games poses a fatal problem as it threatens fairness, a fundamental premise of the tournament (Lee et al, 2021). Rampant cheating reduces trust in the competition system, diminishes the inherent fun of the game, leads to player dropout, and inflicts serious damage to the game company's brand image (Yan and Randell, 2009;Wu and Chen, 2018).…”

“…Accordingly, game companies are constantly investing resources and workforce to develop security programs that can detect and prevent cheating in advance, and take post-action measures such as 'bans' (Noah, 2022). In academia, studies on technical countermeasures and methods to detect and prevent online game cheating are conducted (Han et al, 2022;Qian et al, 2022), as well as research aiming to discover psychosocial factors influencing game cheating and potential countermeasures (Vorderer et al, 2004;Lee et al, 2021;Schöber and Stadtmann, 2022). However, research is still primarily focused on providing solutions from a technical perspective, and there is a lack of studies understanding game cheating users and establishing countermeasures from a socio-psychological perspective, regardless of the seriousness of game cheating and the importance of analyzing the psychological characteristics and motivations that lead users to dishonest gaming behaviors and establishing strategies to prevent them.…”