A new study has revealed the single-player games with the most gamers using cheats on PC, consoles and mobile devices.
Although less common these days, cheats have been part of the gaming experience for decades. Especially in the 80s and 90s, game developers often built-in cheat codes that players could use with specific keystroke combos or using a certain passcode. As things like achievement systems and online gaming have become more common, the use of cheats has become less common, but there are still games that support them.
Spades Challenge conducted a study that analyzed Google searches to find the games with the most cheat users. Spades Challenge has found that the game with the most cheat seekers is none other than Grand Theft Auto 5 with 442,300 monthly cheat searches, a result that is perhaps not too surprising. Many GTA titles have appeared in the top 10 list of games with the most cheat users, with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas taking third place and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City at tenth place.
Considering the age of San Andreas and Vice City, these two titles shouldn’t be on the list, but it’s worth mentioning that they were recently re-released and that’s most likely what has people searching cheat codes for this game again. Both Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Vice City have been remade as part of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition, and while the collection received negative reviews at launch, it seems likely GTA’s name is enough to motivate gamers to buy the game regardless.
The top 10 games with the most cheat users are:
Grand Theft Auto 5 – 442,300 The Sims 4 – 358,400 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas – 112,200 Little Alchemy – 57,000 Red Dead Redemption 2 – 39,300 Wordscapes – 37,000 Scrabble Go – 23,000 Wheel of Fortune – 20,000 Little Alchemy 2 – 19,000 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – 17,700
In second place is The Sims 4 with 358,400 monthly cheat searches. Red Dead Redemption 2 ranks fifth with 39,300 monthly cheat searches. The rest of the list is mostly mobile titles, with Little Alchemy in fourth, Wordscapes in sixth, Scrabble Go in seventh, Wheel of Fortune in eighth and Little Alchemy 2 takes ninth place.
Cheating in single-player games is harmless and in some cases even encouraged, which is why developers include cheat codes in games for players to use. However, cheating in online games is a big problem in the industry. It’s likely that more people are searching for cheats for online games like Call of Duty: Warzone, Fortnite, etc., but those types of “cheats” were not taken into account in the study.
Online gaming fraud is a huge problem in the industry and has cost companies quite a bit of money to deal with. The rampant cheating has the potential to frustrate gamers and cause many to quit playing certain games, and so companies have had to develop anti-cheat software to combat it. However, cheat users and cheat makers often find ways to combat anti-cheat software, so it looks like this will be a never-ending battle in the online gaming arena.
See also: Overdose will be the name of Hideo Kojima’s next horror game