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.
Highlights
With the recent developments in the e-sports industry, competitive online games, such as League of Legends (LoL), Overwatch, and Valorant, have won the favor of the public
In correlation analysis, cheating was negatively correlated with self-esteem (r = −0.193, p < 0.001) and aggression (r = −0.127, p < 0.001), and cheating was positively correlated with aggression (r = 0.412, p < 0.05), competitive motivation (r = 0.139, p < 0.05)
This study empirically examined the associations between psychological factors and cheating in competitive online game environments
Summary
With the recent developments in the e-sports industry, competitive online games, such as League of Legends (LoL), Overwatch, and Valorant, have won the favor of the public. These games are played by a selection of winners of fierce tournaments. All these games offer rewards, such as victory points, emblems, badges, and special items (or character skins), to the winners. Online games that highlight competition and rewards have leaped into prominence. Cheating to gain unfair advantages over other players has emerged as a serious problem.
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