A Cheating Mood: The Emotional and Psychological Benefits of Cheating in Single-Player Games

Abstract

Players, developers, and researchers generally agree that "cheating" to gain an unfair advantage over others fosters negative player experiences. Despite social and experiential repercussions and cheating's negative stigma, the majority of players regularly cheat in some form. Fixation on cheating's social and moral axes disservices understanding the ways in which players cheat in single-player settings, cheating's potential benefits, and cheating's effects on player experience. Surveying 188 U.S. players on their beliefs, preferences, and experiences of cheating in single-player contexts, mixed-methods analyses reveal that, unlike in multiplayer contexts, most players endorse cheating in single-player settings. They do so to facilitate mood repair, stress relief, and flow, and to exercise agency over satisfying their psychological needs during gameplay. Building off prior studies in support of cheating, we discuss the ludic, cognitive, and wellness benefits found, and argue against imposing the moral dilemmas of multiplayer cheating on single-player contexts.