Online Gaming & Cheating

As most know I am an online Internet gamer. I play the Call of Duty series of first person shooters - I've been playing this series since 2004. And while there were always cheaters, the loss of dedicated servers has made the problem even worse.

In all the previous iterations of this series there were "dedicated" servers for online gaming, meaning a private person rented servers from companies that provide such service. They could configure the game to be played as the one footing the bill wished. And when a cheater popped up which happened from time to time one of the admins of the server could kick them and ban them from playing on that specific server ever again.

Now that Modern Warfare 2 no longer supports dedicated servers the cheating has become rampant. Now the developers of the franchise provide servers for online play, and it's not working at all, and that brings me to my point.

I believe online cheaters are sadists. Here's why.

If one cheats to rack up massive numbers of kills, who are they fooling? So when they look at their stats and see they have 5000 kills and only 1000 deaths do they puff up with pride at a 5 to 1 kill death ratio? Why? They cheated to get that ratio, so either they're amnesiacs that forgot they cheated, or they have another motive. Even when we lie to others, we still know the truth unless we are pathological and can't tell lying from not.
The only real option left is that one who cheats enjoys inflicting misery upon another.

That is the dictionary definition of "sadist." If one cheats to rack up massive ratios, and since global stats are not kept or displayed, then who are they impressing? No other player in the world can see their stats so it's not as if to cheat is earning them admiration and awe from we other gamers.

It has to be sadism. Those of us who are the victims of cheating know it. The game replays the kill for the victim to see it from the perspective of the killer. It's called "killcam" and it also serves for the victim to root out their killer and exact gaming revenge by killing them back. In fact the game even awards specific bonus points for killing your previous killer by granting recognition in the form of "payback" as it's known in game.

So if the cheater is exposed to everyone in the game to see, and they are, again, who is being fooled? No one, obviously. It's to intentionally inflict suffering on other people. That's sadistic folks, pure and unadulterated.

I have always sort of found the Internet jargon of "haha" to be the same. It's one's laughing in face of another for their ability to in some way inflict suffering at another person, or just a stated enjoyment at seeing someone else suffer. Of course if "haha" is used as a laugh at an obviously funny incident, that is one thing. But "haha" used when someone on the Internet "gets over" on another in some way is clearly a demonstration of hatefulness and a stated enjoyment of the suffering of someone else.

Sadism, pure and simple. Clearly the cheater is enjoying inflicting unhappiness upon his victims. He gets a thrill from it. Also they run the risk of a global ban by the company that runs the servers. When and if we report a cheater and take screen shots and upload them to the games server providers, they can then ban that ip address and account from ever playing the game online again, so they are risking that punishment as well. Why?

Clearly they more enjoy their inflicting misery upon others then they get form playing the game. I am of the belief that when one is so driven to do these things they have real issues.

This game costs $60.00 to buy, has been out less then 4 weeks and the cheating is rampant. Clearly the cheater is willing to risk the loss of the $60.00 and the loss of future ability to play the game online. To me that speaks to motivations to commit this behavior well beyond any possible benefit.

Of course to me I never understood why anyone would cheat at anything. I mean if I cheat to win some thing, I know I didn't deserve the actual "thing" I got from cheating, so why bother? I get no satisfaction from being underhanded to get by. I will beat one, or win as the case maybe, on merit and not because I am sadistic and enjoy watching others suffer for my own self aggrandizement.

The only possible motive for the online cheater is sadism. When one enjoys making other suffer, or enjoys watching others suffer, that's sadistic. Look in Merriam-Websters.

I guess it just remains to ask, am I too a sadist because I would, in 100% total candor and honesty, enjoy kicking their cheating teeth down their throats? And no, not because they beat me at something, but because they were so disrespectful to me as to make me angry, disgruntled, frustrated, and not enjoying my leisure time. And that they enjoyed watching a fellow Human suffer for their pleasure. That's a sadist, and as far as I'm concerned Sadists are potentially criminals as well.

Lemme find and eliminate these foul vermin. I mean, it's only a matter of time before they inflict some real physical or emotional harm to another person face to face. I am just offering to help Humanity. If I were king the sadistic would find a place in Hell right alongside Hitler and all the rest of the Human filth that came before.

Is that sadistic of me? So be it! Remember, I would only inflict such on those who have done something to deserve it, so I am retributive, but not actually sadistic. I will however gleefully admit I love to deliver comeuppance to those who deserve it. Since Edward Woodward, "The Equalizer" recently passed away, can I have the job and title? Please?