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Lookup NU author(s): Andrew RichardsonORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Cheating and doping are common in sports, with various methods to illicit physiological or technical advantages. Academic research has defined many ways and reasons one would cheat within a sporting context. Nevertheless, cheating is a real threat to the virtual landscape within esports. These issues have become such a significant problem that developers of these esports are creating anti-cheat software to combat these cheaters. Most esports research discussing cheating has only recounted a handful of methods to cheat, and there is no standalone review to synthesize all the separate ways one has cheated in these games before. The work will set out to produce a review of all the current strategies that have been employed to cheat in competitions. The work will utilize Yan and Randell's original categorization of cheating in video games (2005) and apply it to the esports landscape. The review concluded that 44 words or phrases were used to describe 11 categories, and 24 sub-categories to perform a range of cheats, hacks, or doping across esports. The implication of this review shows the significant range of threats that opens esport organizations to being vulnerable from cheaters. Furthermore, there is much needed work to revise the governance of esport titles, platforms and organizations to counteract these threats
Author(s): Richardson A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: International Journal of Esports
Year: 2025
Volume: 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 25
Online publication date: 05/10/2025
Acceptance date: 18/09/2025
Date deposited: 07/01/2026
ISSN (electronic): 2634-1069
Publisher: Esports
URL: https://www.ijesports.org/article/149/html
