The cheating conversation surrounding sports games has become impossible to avoid.
Over the past week, the community surrounding MLB The Show 26 has once again been dragged into debates about scripts, automated pitching, suspicious plate discipline, and whether some players are using outside software to gain an advantage. At the same time, the NBA 2K community continues to deal with issues surrounding Cronus Zen devices, modified controllers, and timing assistance.
And rightfully so.
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Nobody wants to spend hours grinding through Ranked Seasons, sweating through close games, improving mechanically, learning tendencies, and building teams just to feel like the guy on the other side might not even be playing fair.
If you ask anybody in any of these communities, virtually everybody claims to hate cheaters. Players constantly complain about them, and developers spend years trying to stop them. And yet, cheating never goes away. If anything, it seems to be getting worse each year, or at least highlighted enough for people to perceive it as getting worse.
But the more I’ve thought about all of this, the more I keep coming back to one question: Why do people cheat in sports games anyway? I mean, it’s not like they can enter any legitimate tournaments, and considering the cost of the games and the software necessary to cheat in them, it seems like a money pit with little to no real return on investment.
Not only am I wrong about that, but it’s a way deeper issue than you could imagine.
The Psychology Behind Cheating
There have been multiple studies done on the psychology behind cheating in video games over the years. One particularly interesting example is “The Influence of Psychological Needs and Motivation on Game Cheating: Insights From Self-Determination Theory,” a study published in Frontiers in Psychology by researchers from Konkuk University, University of North Texas, and Dongyang University.
Basically, the study backs up what many players probably already suspected. People who play because they actually enjoy the game are less likely to be cool with cheating. People who play because they want the rank, the rewards, the status, or the win at all costs are more likely to justify it. That doesn’t mean every competitive player is cheating, obviously. But it does help explain why games built around ranked ladders, rare rewards, and online status can become breeding grounds for this stuff.
In other words, the more somebody ties their identity to winning, the more likely they are to rationalize crossing the line. And honestly, does that not perfectly describe modern sports game culture?
Think about what games like MLB The Show, NBA 2K, Madden, or EA FC have become over the past decade. Everything revolves around records, rankings, rewards, rep systems, and social clout. Instead of it simply being a case of losing, for many people, it feels like falling behind.
In these games, you’re constantly pushed towards rewards. XP. VC. Stubs. Season ladders. Ranked rewards. Limited-time cards. Exclusive cosmetics. Rep. Battle passes. Leaderboards.
The games themselves unintentionally create environments where winning starts to matter more than the actual experience of playing. And before someone accuses me of trying to come off as holier than thou, I’m 100% guilty of this, too.
There are several times when I’m playing Diamond Dynasty in MLB The Show or Clubs in EA FC where I get entirely too carried away. I become more concerned with the competitive aspect of what I’m doing than with having fun or enjoying the competition itself. I’ve always been ultra competitive, which is why I got into sports as a kid in the first place.
And that’s where that motivation to cheat creeps in. For me, it just translates to irrational anger. For others, however, it’s way more “important” and will drive them to do some wacky things, all in the name of “I won.”
The Economics
So you already know the psychology behind (a basic summation, but I digress), so what other factors are there?
Well, money is a big one.
Obviously, anyone who is a compulsive cheater won’t be able to enter any legitimate competitive environment without being caught, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to exploit the system for monetary gain.
For instance, anyone cheating in MLB The Show 26 can hop on Ranked or Weekend Classic, have the game hit for them, then climb up the ranks. They’ll earn the best cards, sell them for Stubs, then be in a position to sell those Stubs on third-party marketplaces. From there, these players create alt accounts, then repeat the process.
But it’s not only in online play where cheating is commonplace — it happens offline, too.
Remember that video I mentioned earlier, where Your Friend Kyle interviewed someone who had access to the software that enabled cheating? Well, according to them, they never used the software while playing online; instead, they used it to grind out Mini Seasons.
At first, as dumb as it sounded, I kind of understood it. I hate grinding Conquest and Mini Seasons. I find it to be monotonous as all hell, so I can completely understand someone hooking it up to a machine and doing something else.
Then it hit me: That’s cheating, too. It’s not as egregious as cheating against another human player, but it’s still bad. But hear me out.
As we all know, Mini Seasons is one of the most rewarding modes when it comes to grinding, as it yields a ton of packs for anyone with the time and desire to grind it out. If someone were to rig the system to have software play the mode for them until they either exited the application or the electricity ran out, that’s a ton of packs that are being earned. And the more packs you earn, the better the chances of you packing some insanely valuable cards or enough dupes to earn a quick buck.
And then, like the Ranked cheater, the Mini Seasons cheater has enough Stubs to complete the Live Series collection three times over, sell those Stubs on third-party sites, then repeat. It’s an economy breaker.
At the end of the day, I don’t think most people start cheating because they hate the game. Ironically, it’s usually the opposite. They’re so invested in winning, progression, rewards, and status that they eventually convince themselves the shortcut is worth it. And even if ultra competitiveness isn’t the motivator, financial gain certainly is.
It explains why this problem keeps getting worse, especially in sports games.
Published: May 6, 2026 05:09 pm