Having gamed on and off over the years, I don’t think the average cheater is actually a highly motivated super genius who derives reward from patching their BIOS or installing PCIe DMA cards to an entire second computer built for the purpose of cheating.
The average cheater is (or was) basically a troll. They delighted in the act of ruining other people’s games, not installing the cheat. The harder you make it for them to get to that point, the less enjoyment they get.
The people you describe who are in it for the thrill of breaking through are not the ones playing 6 hours every night because the game itself is not the thrill. It’s the exploration of the hardware and software. They might get cheats set up, but once it’s working they get bored with the game and move on to another technical challenge.
I wish this was the case, but cheating addiction is real and there's people with PCs from 2016 spending $100+ on cheats a month. If they're spending that money they're also dedicated enough to jump through some hoops.
You two aren't disagreeing, your just describing different groups of people.
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