From newbies to live-streamers, why cheating in online games is huge in China

Cheating is particularly prominent in China’s gaming cafes, the preferred playing venue for many gamers due to the availability of specialised hardware that enhances the playing experience

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So-called i-cafes in China are hugely popular among gamers and people who enjoy watching professional and amateur game tournaments. Photo: AP

Published: 6:00am, 30 Jan 2018Updated: 12:23am, 31 Jan 2018

The players who make up the world’s largest gaming market may soon face a moral dilemma: play fair and risk losing, or cheat to guarantee a win.

From the global blockbuster multiplayer online game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) to simple mobile games hosted by Tencent Holdings’ WeChat messenger service, the desire by many Chinese gamers to win at all cost has spurred a new industry supplying cheating programs to the country’s 560 million players, more than one third of whom fork out money to satisfy their obsession.

Since last year, cheating has been rampant on PUBG, which is available on Steam, a US-based gaming site that is currently accessible in China. In October last year BattlEye, the anti-cheating service that PUBG developer Bluehole uses, said it banned between 6,000 and 13,000 different accounts per day, including nearly 20,000 accounts banned within 24 hours on October 13 – with “most” of these from China.

Legitimising cheating by way of paid add-ons to games could be a worrying trend in a country where e-sports is hugely popular and players can earn millions of dollars in prize money. China, which makes up 57 per cent of the global e-sports audience, will also host the 2022 Asian Games where e-sports has been designated as an official medal event.

Separately, if cheating isn’t stamped out it could lead to an increase in hacking. According to a report by Gamma Data Corporation, a Beijing-based research firm, 50.3 per cent of gamers said they had been hacked or had been sold plug-in solutions last year.