They multiply on the networks, kill everyone in their path and reap the laurels of those who spend hours in front of their screens to improve themselves.
Hidden among the 75 million Call of Duty players, more and more cheaters are on the shooter video game.
Using pirate software downloaded from sites easily accessible via a search engine, these "bad players" rig the game.
Their existence harms the community as much as it brings back the sellers of "cheats".
“An entry-level cheat sells from € 25 per week,” explains Loïc *, who took us behind the scenes of cheating.
It is the doping of video games, it makes it possible to target the enemy with ease, […] to have a certain superiority vis-à-vis our adversaries.
This firing "assistance" is so extensive that it is easily identifiable by other users who, by a certain majority, can decide to ban the fraudster.
But above all, there is undetectable software "which can be rented up to € 5,000 per month".
For the average player, the interest of such a cheat is less, but for a professional who would prefer to remain discreet about his fraudulent activity, it is an investment in the future.
“In France, we have tournaments with winnings of 25,000 - 30,000 €, explains Punkill, a semi-pro gamer and YouTuber who tracks down cheaters by exposing their misdeeds in his videos.
In North America, it goes up to € 250,000.
So that there may be guys who cheat, that drives me crazy ”.
With the rise of video games, the job of streamer - which consists of broadcasting and commenting on live games - has become more democratic.
“The subscribers follow us because they like our personality but also because we are quite good at the game,” says Punkill.
But "if a streamer cheats, he is directly discredited", adds Loïc.
Caught in the act of cheating, MrPxl paid the price for an inattentive error, which saw him unveil the control panel of his cheating software live.
Banned from the Twitch platform, "he has ceased all activity, he closed his business, he has stopped everything," says Punkill, author of four videos aimed at unmasking him and denouncing his activity to the general public.
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In 2020, Activision, publisher of Call of Duty, collected $ 3 billion in net earnings thanks to its license.
Faced with the dissatisfaction of players, the company claims to fight against the cheat by suing software developers and banning as many user accounts as possible.
In January, 60,000 accounts were banned from gambling by the anti-cheating services of the video game giant.
"It may seem like a lot but it's just the tip of the iceberg", laments the streamer.
All you have to do is recreate an account with another email address to instantly come back to the game.
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