The issue of cheating has more than a few facets, but it usually comes down to two things: 1) people that want to play and win with very little chance of losing, and 2) to 'spoil' the fun/competition of other players by denying them the ability/chance to win. (*If you're talking about tournaments its about money and/or prestige.)
One thing has become very clear to me, and its that cheating has become exceptionally EASY to do. A 5-year-old could do it! Play a game on your computer and have a chess engine open on your smartphone... voila! But this doesn't say 'why' people cheat, only how they can cheat. So the real question is 'why', and I stated that first. But its deeper than that, and I think I have that answer.
I used to play fps games, such as Halo and Call of Duty, and they are great fun. Unfortunately I found that cheating in fps games can happen as well, using aimbots and wallhacks (the two most used cheats). Early on (say around 2005-2008) players would use cheats but when caught they would be regularly ridiculed and chased off. As time went on I found that this had reversed, that cheaters were regularly defended and those who brought charges were themselves jeered as weak, unskilled players. As with chess, it isn't easy to prove that someone is cheating short of confession. But the 'why' still hasn't been answered... and the 'why' is "Win... at all costs!", whether for money, fame, companionship, etc. And here's another reason cheating is so prevalent today... their are virtually no repercussions, especially on the internet where you can be one 'person' one day and another 'person' another.
Two other facets come into play as well... apathy and a new generation. People cheat... so what? It's only a game! This is a mindset I've encountered so often it boggles my mind. How many of you have seen the meme of a cat with a sweater and a serious face with the words, "YOU THINK THIS IS A ************' GAME?!" While I find it funny myself, the argument is, "It's only a game! Why are you getting bent out of shape?!" And there is a kernel of truth to that argument, no doubt, but the counterargument is, "Why are YOU playing the game then?", and the answers are 'fun' or 'trolling', the former being an unrealistic answer since 'fun' can't be had if you're not playing but something else is playing for you, and 'trolling' just means you're a jerk and again disqualifies your answer. This IS today's generation, how it thinks, how it rationalizes the current state of 'cheating' in games. Going deeper, you find its a new sort of game.
You might also ask "Well, how does that even work? How does it continue to go unchecked?" In the fps world its pretty easy to deduce that money is the main factor... ban players and you lose money. In chess its a little bit different, not many players pay for chess websites (after joining
chess.com I found the cheating problem to be analogous to fps games and cancelled my membership), so cheating and money aren't really an issue. What happens is that cheating gets refined over the years. In fps terms, the aimbot used to be very easy to spot, it was blatant. Over time, with aim assist and target assist (both implemented by the game developers to make using controllers a viable option on consoles) it became harder to tell if a player was cheating by using a keyboard and mouse with target assist. (*For those that don't know, a keyboard and mouse [kbm] affords much greater control in an fps game compared to a controller, and cheaters use hardware and/or software solutions to enhance that control even more with target assist.) In chess a 'blatant' cheat would be using an engine from start to finish, with no inaccuracies/mistakes/blunders, and crushing your opponent. A less obvious approach is to start with the engine, get a decisive advantage, and play yourself until you finally mate your opponent or they resign (most likely getting a couple inaccuracies/mistakes/blunders along the way to keep from being obvious.) It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to cheat, much less refine it. And money is most definitely to be made from cheating as well.
The bottom line: just like haters gonna hate, cheaters gonna cheat, and the epidemic isn't going to go away because people will FIND a way to keep doing it. I think its sad and pathetic but that's just me. The only thing people like me can do is play the game and keep our eyes open and check those we think are cheating and report them. Thankfully nearly everyone gets caught eventually, its only a matter of time, we just have to do some dirty work occasionally. The chance that we're going to change a generations thinking is, imo, ZERO. One thing I forgot earlier was the, "He's doing it so why can't I?!" mentality, and believe me when I say that's a HUGE part of the problem! The answer, of course, is, "You can, but then you're just a jerk like him.", but in the end means nothing because there are no consequences. As Luke Cage would say, "It is what it is."
