43% of Online Gamers've Used Cheats to Gain Competitive Advantage Say Irdeto & Denuvo

[Len]

Cybersecurity specialist Irdeto has revealed the results of a new survey on game cheats and the impact of cheaters on users’ online gaming experiences. They found an unsurprising 60% of gamers surveyed had been negatively impacted by cheaters at some point, while a further 43 percent of saddos users admitted to using third-party tools to cheat.

Now, I’m no mathematician, but if 43% of gamers have used cheats, the percentage of gamers impacted by cheaters at some point should be far higher than 60%. Anyway, the Irdeto Global Gaming Survey encompassed some 9,436 gamers and found out a whole other bunch of info on cheats, cheating, and the effect they have on a game’s success.

If you’ve been reading this and scratching your head as to where you’ve heard the name Irdeto from before, I should highlight that this is the very same Irdeto that bought out Denuvo a few months ago. With that out of the way, onwards with the data.

Gamers were surveyed in six different countries (China, Germany, Japan, South Korea, UK, and the US), with 77% saying they would probably stop playing a multiplayer game if they discovered other players were cheating. In terms of what this means for the publishers’ bottom line, 48% said they’d be less likely to buy in-game content if they suspected others were cheating. Irdeto’s PR angle on this is, naturally, that this has “a massive impact on the revenues of game publishers if they do not adequately protect multiplayer online games from cheating.”

Just 12% of online gamers said they’d never been negatively impacted by cheats, while 8% said they were always impacted. Cheating is most rife among younger age groups, with 12% of 18 to 24-year-olds claiming they were always negatively impacted by cheats.

If you want to see just how ineffective surveys like this can be though, particularly in terms of how the questions are framed, then look no further than Denuvo’s own statistic that 57% of gamers claim to have never used third-party tools to cheat, while 12% admitted to cheating. Somewhere along the line, 31% of those surveyed must’ve been telling little porkies.

“These results clearly indicate that cheating in multiplayer online games is a growing problem,” said Reinhard Blaukovitsch, managing director of Denuvo at Irdeto. “Furthermore, the global nature of these games means that it doesn’t matter where the cheating is taking place, as it has the potential to negatively impact other gamers around the world, and this sets a big challenge for game publishers.”

Elmar Fischer, sales director of Denuvo at Irtedo, believes that cheating also poses a great financial risk. “If cheaters are allowed to prosper, the impact on other players can subsequently lead to lower game traffic and shrinking revenues. It is, therefore, crucial for game publishers to secure their games against cheating to ensure a great experience for gamers all over the world who want to play by the rules.”

Cheats are a huge probably in some games, most notably PUBG and Rainbow Six Siege in recent months, and it’s clearly important that measures are made to tackle them. This entire survey has been conducted by Irdeto and Denuvo for the purposes of good PR though, so you’ll have to make of it what you will. It’s all in the aim of signal boosting Denuvo’s anti-cheat technology that can, allegedly, be used to prevent hackers from manipulating or distorting data and code to gain a competitive advantage. Irdeto’s answer to cheats is, predictably enough, use Denuvo protection.