cheaters

Steam store

If I were set on that, I’d probably play on a console. I prefer keyboard+mouse for shooters, but…

The PC’s strength is that it’s open. You can do whatever you want. Want to mod a game to have more features or make it look prettier? Go for it. Tweak it? Sure. Get more-powerful or newer hardware to get a more-attractive appearance in a lot of games? Sure. Cheat to skip that annoying grindy bit in game X? Sure thing. Use whatever new and interesting input devices you want to add quality-of-life features with an extra button or macros? Sure.

Works beautifully for single-player games.

But by the same token, attempts to resist cheating in multiplayer competitive games are ill-suited to the platform and rely on developers trying to hack together attempts that tend to have performance and compatibility implications and work imperfectly. It’s hard to try to lock down an open platform.

Whereas the strength of the console is that it’s closed. You can’t do whatever you want. You don’t get to mod or tweak games much, which eliminates routes to get an edge via exploiting that. Everyone has (more-or-less) the same hardware, so nobody can “pay-to-win” in the sense of getting a performance edge in multiplayer competitive games — there’s a level playing field. A lot of PC gaming hardware is ultimately driven by trying to sell some way to basically let players pay-to-win, to get some edge in competitive multiplayer, which isn’t something that most players much like having around — and consoles don’t have that problem. Cheating is a pain. I understand that these days, console vendors blacklist and authenticate alternative input devices, so that players can’t use alternative controllers and the like, which prevents them from getting an edge.

Works beautifully for competitive multiplayer games.