How developers combat cheaters in mobile games
Gamers worldwide spend between $350 million and $500 million annually on cheating software. Publishers and developers lose up to 40% of their potential gaming revenue due to it, according to various estimates. It's no surprise that cheaters have migrated from PCs and consoles to mobile platforms. What they do there, what penalties exist for cheating today, and what to do if you suspect cheating—we'll explore below.

 
What is cheating in mobile games?
How cheats in games have changed
Cheats like in https://wh-satano.ru/en used to be key combinations that unlocked incredible possibilities for players: god mode with immortality, tons of money, or a full set of all possible weapons. Gamers over 30 probably remember the iconic HESOYAM, MOTHERLODE, and IDDQD by heart.

 

With the growing popularity of online gaming, ranking systems, in-game purchases, and other modern conveniences, cheats have also evolved—they are now sophisticated programs that seek out vulnerabilities to give an advantage where all players should have a level playing field.

 

Cheating (from the English word "cheat" - "to deceive, to deceive") is the use of special software and the exploitation of bugs and vulnerabilities in video games to gain an unfair advantage over other players.

 

While the cheats of the 2000s in single-player games were the initiative of the developers themselves and were created to facilitate or diversify gameplay, the cheats of the 20s in multiplayer games were a violation of the game rules, a failure to adhere to the principles of equality, and, in general, banal cheating.

 

Where can I find cheats in mobile games?
In mobile games, cheats are especially common in multiplayer titles like PUBG Mobile, CoD Mobile, Genshin Impact, and others. Some allow you to "see through walls" and move quickly, others allow you to fly, and still others allow you to skip cutscenes.

Cheating in mobile online games also includes connecting external peripherals—such as a keyboard, mouse, or gamepad—to a smartphone or tablet to gain an advantage over opponents. Special Android tools, such as GameGuardian or Cheat Engine, have been developed for cheaters, allowing them to alter character stats and interfere with gameplay. Special anti-cheat software is also being developed to combat cheaters. Furthermore, game developers have come up with a variety of ways to punish cheaters in games.

 

How players become offenders
Most game cheaters don't write their own cheats—they buy ready-made solutions. This is how an ordinary player becomes a cheater, but usually only for a short time. This is because game developers have learned to protect themselves from cheats, identify violators, and block them using various methods—from automated algorithms to manual moderation. The fight against cheaters is as advanced as cheating itself. Let's look at the most common methods that cheaters use to gain an advantage in games.

 
Memory change
Cheating apps (such as GameGuardian or Cheat Engine) allow you to change game memory values ​​in real time, such as lives, resources, and so on. They also apply to online games if some of the information is stored locally in the device's memory.

 
Code injection
Using tools like Frida, IDA Pro, or Hopper, cheaters inject their code directly during gameplay or modify APK/IPA binaries before installation. This allows cheaters to alter game mechanics, remove ads, and create their own mods, which are often distributed on third-party sites.

 
Scripts and bots
They automate gameplay: farming, grinding, mass-clicking. In addition to classic bots, this category includes auto-cheats such as aimbots and triggerbots.

 
Exploiting network exchange vulnerabilities
Interception and modification of network traffic between the client and server allows for cheating reward mechanics, in-game purchases, and sending fake commands to the server. This is often done through proxies, man-in-the-middle attacks, and traffic analysis frameworks.

 
Using emulators
Running an application in a PC emulator provides great opportunities for debugging, automation, scaling attacks, and bypassing platform-specific security.

What measures do developers take for cheating?
 

Mobile gaming hasn't been popular for very long, and anti-cheat methods and tools are migrating to this relatively new area, but not as rapidly as honest players and developers would like. Therefore, cheating remains a problem in mobile games—it hasn't yet been combated as effectively as on PC.

PUBG developers are demonstrating significant results in their fight against cheaters: for example, from May 15 to 18, 2025, the developers banned approximately 210,000 accounts for using prohibited software, and in the first half of 2024, nearly 1.5 million accounts were permanently banned.

To combat cheaters in mobile games, developers are working in several directions at once:

strengthening protection;
detection and ban of cheaters;
handling player complaints.
Strengthening protection

Server-side validation has become the foundation of modern security. Most calculations are offloaded to the server, preventing cheaters from modifying critical game parameters.

Client-side anti-cheat software scans your RAM and searches for installed programs, performing a deep analysis of processes.

Data encryption using algorithms such as AES protects files containing stored data from modification.

Dependency injection detectors define a whitelist of libraries that can be included in the final build of the game.

The developers use a polymorphic approach, releasing micro-patches that modify the client every week or even every day. This doesn't protect against all cheats, but it does prevent them from modifying or reading data in the game's memory.

 

Detecting Cheaters
Developers are actively using AI-powered player behavior analysis. For example, Valve's VACnet technology analyzes the behavior of players in tens of thousands of matches daily for "humanity."

One of the most innovative solutions was the Fog of War system in PUBG Mobile. It limits the information a player's device receives, effectively combating "X-ray vision" cheats.

The principle is as follows: Fog of War first scans all buildings and terrain on PUBG Mobile maps, then uses internal calculations to determine what the player should see. Only the information the player should see is sent from the server to the device. Invisible information is not transmitted, preventing cheaters with "X-ray vision." During testing, the system helped reduce the number of cheats by 50%, and in some regions, the number of complaints against cheaters decreased by 62%.

Call of Duty Mobile uses the Ricochet Anti-Cheat system, which automatically closes the game if it detects mouse and keyboard aiming, and detects applications that allow lobby browsing before a game starts.

Free Fire mobile uses Tencent's anti-cheat system, which includes preventative measures and active monitoring. According to the developers, their prevention mechanism blocks approximately 80% of cheat attempts before they affect the game.

 

Teleport detectors check the distance between player positions at certain intervals.

 

Monitoring systems track unusual player activity and analyze application code for anomalies. For manual verification, the anti-cheat software can send replays, screenshots, and chat content to the server.

Once Human has demonstrated impressive results in combating cheaters: in just one month, the developers have banned over 1,000 players for using cheats. The company has significantly strengthened its detection systems, including combating programs like Cheat Engine and hardware cheating devices.

Most anti-cheat software features a delay between detecting a cheat and banning an account. This is done to prevent cheat developers from understanding the specific actions that led to the ban. For example, Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) can send a ban decision weeks or even months after detection.

Riot Games employees have been infiltrating closed Discord servers of cheaters for years, posing as regular players. This method allows them to gain insider information about new cheats and their distribution methods.

This is what the cheater detection system looks like at the Russian mobile development studio ManinGame. The team includes moderators who analyze player complaints and respond to alerts from the automated cheater detection system.

For example, a gamer plays from five accounts at once and tries to circumvent anti-multiplayer systems by switching IPs. Through a thorough assessment of each profile, the automated system identifies such players and prompts a moderator to review the case manually.

The moderator decides whether there has been a violation of the rules and victims. If there has been, a penalty follows: the first offense results in rollbacks of all transactions and a warning; the second offense results in a temporary ban; the third offense results in a permanent ban.

 

Punishments for cheaters in games
Among the gaming sanctions, the most popular are: temporary ban, permanent ban, hardware ban, rank reduction, and feature restrictions.

Permanent bans remain the primary measure against cheaters. VAC imposes a lifetime online ban on the game in which a player was caught. For example, the system banned approximately 40,000 cheaters in Dota 2 by luring them into a trap with a code that was activated only by specific cheating software.

PUBG Mobile, using the Ban Pan 2.0 system, blocks cheaters' devices at the hardware level to prevent them from creating new accounts. In 2023, the Ban Pan system banned over 16.7 million accounts worldwide. The main reasons for bans included: auto-aim (21%), X-ray vision (20%), damage modification (15%), and speed cheats (13%).

 

Feature restrictions are widely used as a sanction. Many VPN programs are declared "VAC-conflicting" and must be disabled while playing.

Call of Duty uses a Damage Shield system that gradually takes away cheaters' abilities—first critical damage, then headshots, and then weapons altogether.

Rust creates premium servers for players with expensive Steam inventory. The vast majority of banned cheaters have inventory worth less than $20, while regular players have inventory worth more than $20. This creates an economic barrier to entry for dishonest players.

Popular games that punish cheaters include Dota 2, PUBG, Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Genshin Impact (including their mobile versions).

In South Korea, cheating carries a prison sentence of up to five years. China has similar laws against creators and distributors of cheating software, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

 

How game developers troll cheaters
Bans and restrictions aren't the only ways to punish in-game violators. Some developers take a more inventive approach to sanctions, literally trolling players.

In Titanfall, cheaters aren't banned; they're permanently sent to separate servers where they can only play with other cheaters.

Valve uses a special type of trap called a "honeypot." Technically, they differ from regular traps in that they create a fictitious target for cheaters that isn't visible to players, but triggers the cheat.

RuneScape came up with its own trolling scheme: it created Botany Bay, a place for the trial and punishment of cheaters, where public executions of violators took place.

In the case of Dota 2, the developers noticed a surge in cheaters and built a special interface element into the game—a "window"—that was invisible to regular players but visible to cheating programs. When a cheater clicked on or interacted with this "window," the system registered the violation and issued a ban.

In The Stanley Parable, trolling reaches a new level: using cheats in the game results in the player being placed in an empty room with a table, where the announcer announces "a thousand billion trillion years" to think about it.

 

Which games have almost no cheaters?
Co-op games are much less likely to involve cheaters. Games like Helldivers and Deep Rock Galactic lack direct competition between players, so cheaters are virtually nonexistent.

Consoles traditionally have fewer cheaters than PCs. The consoles' closed architecture and strict software controls create additional barriers to cheating.

Overwatch and Fortnite are considered leaders in the fight against cheaters. These games ban cheaters based on hardware, which is why they have the lowest number of cheaters. For example, in Overwatch, you'll only encounter two cheaters in 200 hours of play. In Fortnite, due to the game becoming free-to-play, the number has increased to 10 cheaters per 200 hours—but this is still a very low figure.

Valorant Mobile has achieved impressive results thanks to its Embedded Vanguard system. Over the past four years, the system has banned over 3.6 million accounts across all platforms—that's roughly one ban every 37 seconds.

Battlefield games are among the worst shooters for cheating. This is especially noticeable when a new game in the series is released, as the developers actively ban cheaters. Problems only arise after the game's active support ends.

What to do if you encounter a cheater
When encountering a cheater in a mobile game, there are several effective strategies for dealing with it.

 

How to ban a cheater
To conduct a "cheat check," use the in-game report system: open the menu, select the offender's nickname, then select "Accuse of Abuse" and check all the appropriate boxes. If it's not too late, record any suspicious incidents to report to the moderators.

 

What is better not to do?
Leave the session immediately if a cheater starts giving away money or other resources—cheaters sometimes get into a generosity frenzy and shower everyone with in-game loot. Accepting such "gifts" can result in your account being banned.

 

The "ignore" method
Don't provoke the cheater—use the "ignore" method. By joining a session where no one is paying attention to the cheating, the cheater won't receive any feedback and will likely leave the game.

 

Change your identification data
If a cheater suddenly starts stalking you in-game, change your nickname and, if possible, your IP address. If the stalking continues, contact the game's technical support with video recordings of the violations.