Tag Archives: cheaters

Casual Games like Minecraft Have Tons of Cheaters

Online shooters have a long history of issues with cheaters. When gamers start their rants about cheating, they often describe getting swiftly and unfairly shot down in Call of Duty, Fortnite, or Apex Legends.

This may be a surprise to some: Casual games actually have an even bigger problem with cheaters than shooters.

According to a recent study by Surfshark, casual titles are at the top of the list of games with the most interest in cheating methods. Minecraft, Among Us, Roblox, and The Sims 4 all made their top 10.

They created the list by adding the total number of views on YouTube videos that showed people how to cheat for a given game. It’s not the most accurate method, as a game’s ranking is just as dependent on its overall popularity as people’s intention to cheat. Still, the data gives us a good indication of the total population of cheaters in each game.

Cheaters in Minecraft

Created by the Swedish game developer Mojang Studio, Minecraft [Amazon] is a gaming sensation nobody could have predicted. It’s simple in its approach while most other popular video games embrace realistic graphics and complex storylines. In Minecraft, players build their surroundings and learn to survive and possibly thrive in pre-generated worlds.

According to the metrics tracking site Activeplayer.io, Minecraft has over 168 million active players per month. Surfshark found there were 30,560,700 YouTube views associated with cheating in Minecraft. So, if cheaters watched an average of 10 videos that would mean there are roughly 3,056,070 of them.

Minecraft offers astonishing possibilities, and for players who still want more, there are over 100,000 mods available. Mods are fun and harmless in single-player mode, but when mods are used in multiplayer it becomes a source of frustration for other players.

Cheaters in Among Us

Among Us is an online multiplayer social deduction game developed by Innersloth. It’s a murder mystery game in which one to three players are randomly chosen as imposters. Players explore a spaceship named “The Skeld,” the headquarters of the company MIRA, a research base on the planet Polus, or an Airship. You work together with online players to determine who can be trusted, and who can’t.

According to the metrics tracking site Activeplayer.io, Among Us has over 49 million active players per month. Surfshark found there were 15,984,835 YouTube views associated with cheating in Among Us. So, if cheaters watched an average of 10 videos that would mean there are roughly 1,598,484 of them.

There are two main paths Among Us cheaters can take. The first is when players covertly communicate with other players who are actually their friends. Even if the cheater’s character is dead or not on the other player’s team, they share tips about who the impostor is or who it isn’t. The second path is to hack the game. Cheaters use this method to kill everyone instantly, find out who’s an impostor, or allow their character to move insanely fast.

Cheaters in Roblox

Roblox is a game within a game. Its creator system turns everyday people into game creators. Games like Work at a Pizza Place, Hide and Seek Extreme, Pet Simulator X, and Jailbreak put players in novel scenarios they don’t experience in mainstream titles. It is community-focused in terms of competing in challenges as well. In fact, Roblox games can support up to 100 players.

According to the metrics tracking site Activeplayer.io, Roblox has over 201 million active players per month. Surfshark found there were 10,835,172 YouTube views associated with cheating in Roblox. So, if cheaters watched an average of 10 videos that would mean there are roughly 1,083,517 of them.

Roblox cheaters buy or obtain scripts that let them do things in the game that are normally impossible. These exploits allow them to fly around, walk through walls, teleport, shoot through walls, and do other strange actions.

Cheaters in The Sims 4

The Sims 4 [Amazon] is a social simulation game that replicates everyday life and makes even the mundane fun. Players can build and furnish a home for their characters aka “Sims,” dress them and send them out into the world to start their career, hang out in the city, or visit a horse ranch. Completing objectives is optional, with the main focus of the game being on making choices and exploring the interactive environment.

According to its publisher EA, The Sims 4 has over 70 million active players. Surfshark found there were 10,808,200 YouTube views associated with cheating in The Sims 4. So, if cheaters watched an average of 10 videos that would mean there are roughly 1,080,820 of them.

Players can cheat on their significant others in The Sims, but this is about the other kind of cheating! The Sims 4 features built-in cheat codes that allow players to gain money, improve their skills instantly, escape death, and a lot more. As if that wasn’t enough there’s a vast number of fan-made mods available as well.

Conclusion

Shooters and RPGs are top genres when it comes to the number of people who use exploits to cheat. However, the casual genre is king.

Cheaters typically can’t do anything to harm players outside the game, but they’re still an annoying menace.

Every popular online game has cheaters so don’t let it dissuade you from enjoying your favourite games. Most game developers work hard to make sure cheaters don’t ruin the experience for everyone.

Stopping Cheaters in Fortnite Is a Game of Whack-A-Mole

Ever gotten beaten by a player that never missed once in Fortnite? If you’re like most players, it happens too often.

It probably wasn’t a player with superhuman skills, or your imagination, or luck. Odds are you encountered an aim-botter. And it’s one of the most common ways players cheat in the game.

Fortnite Tops the List for the Most Cheaters

A recent study by Surfshark found that Fortnite has the biggest cheating problem out of any online game.

It looked at how many views videos about cheating have on YouTube. Fortnite was number one by a wide margin, followed by Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

As much as it’s disconcerting for Fortnite players it’s also a testament of its incredible popularity. Fortnite is one of the biggest games in the world right now. And the more players, the higher the headcount of cheaters.

The Types of Hacks on Fortnite

The Fortnite cheats you often hear about from game journalists and frustrated players are aimbot and wallhack.

A website that sells Fortnite cheats stated its top hacks include “Aimbot, ESP, Wallhack, Radar Hack, Trigger Bot, No Recoil and more.” They are being sold for around $10.

Aimbot

Aimbot is a cheat that shows no mercy. Every shot hits its target. Players can run, duck, or jump to try to save themselves but their every movement is perfectly tracked. And the cheater’s opponents are blasted away without hesitation. In fact, aimbots are so precise that they can target parts of the body such as the head, neck, chest, or leg.

Wallhack aka ESP

Wallhack makes it impossible for players to hide and use the element of surprise to their advantage. It allows cheaters to see behind walls, structures, and parts of the terrain like mountains and boulders. It’s a devastating hack because Fortnite is all about building forts and using them in battle. Coupled with aimbot this puts cheaters in “god mode” so other players don’t stand a chance.

Epic Games Takes A Stand

So, is developer Epic Games dropping the ball? Although it can seem like it when emotions are riding high after getting blasted by an aim-botter, the company is actually pulling out all the stops to make it difficult for cheaters.

Community Coordinator Nathan Mooney had this to say on Fortnite’s official blog:

To start, addressing cheaters in Fortnite is the highest priority across Epic Games. We are constantly working against both the cheaters themselves and the cheat providers. And it’s ongoing, we’re exploring every measure to ensure these cheaters are removed and stay removed from Fortnite Battle Royale and the Epic ecosystem. We don’t want to give too many clues about what we’re doing, but we are rolling out tools and will continue to do so. Thousands have been banned and we have no plans to stop!

Note that he says it’s ongoing. The sad reality is every time Epic Games implements a new way to thwart cheating the Fortnite communities’ bad apples eventually figure out how to get around it.

In 2022 Epic rolled out new anti-cheat software called Byfron. And it made tampering with the game harder than ever.

Soon after, hackers voiced their irritation in a Discord server when it prevented them from accessing the game entirely:

“FN will be down for a while. Fortnite after three years has decided to add s**t that will make it hard to cheat,” one hacker said. “They have greatly protected things that we need to make a cheat.”

“Before this update nothing was protected, now everything is.”

Epic is now protecting Fortnite with three layers of anti-cheat software: EasyAntiCheat, Battle Eye, and Byfron.

Detecting the Cheaters

One of Epic’s latest moves is to remove players that use tools to conceal or alter their device’s hardware IDs. These hardware IDs are used to track the parts of a computer a player uses with Epic Games. Thus, anybody hiding it is in almost all cases banned from Fortnite or is up to no good.

Unfortunately, soft hacks are being replaced with hardware hacks to avoid being detected in the first place.

Some players are now using a device called Cronus Zen. It’s a new, advanced take on those old SNES controllers with turbo buttons. It acts as an emulator that can run custom mods for game controllers. The mods improve building and take aim assist to the next level.

Protecting Yourself with a VPN in Fortnite

Using a VPN is an effective way to preserve your online privacy and protect yourself from malicious players. It hides your IP address and by doing so it eliminates the possibility of other players using tools to find it.

The catch is Epic Games doesn’t recommend using a VPN in Fortnite. This is because players with banned IP addresses use VPNs to access the game.

You could get this popup message from Epic Games if you have a VPN enabled, “You were removed from the match due to internet lag, your IP or machine, VPN usage, or for cheating. We recommend not utilizing VPN or proxy services while attempting to play Fortnite.”

For many, the benefits outweigh the possibility of getting removed from matches. See LetMeBy’s reviews of the top VPNs to learn more.

Conclusion

Online multiplayer games will always have cheaters. They’ve been around since the early days in games like Doom and Unreal Tournament.

They’ve infested plenty of titles over the years such as the multiplayer in old versions of Call of Duty. Epic Games has a monumental task on its hands. But they’ll be willing to keep it up as long as Fortnite is a cash cow for Epic.