A lot of games - especially the live service ones - are more unpaid job than game with all the menial tasks you have to do daily, repeatedly, to get some reward. So, people automate that unfun grindy busywork, so that they may actually enjoy the fun parts of the game at their leisure.
It's also about time; some of these glorified Skinner boxes expect you to regularly pour a considerable amount of hours into them for a certain amount of time before you get access to some content - and some people simply don't have (or don't want to spend) time to get there. So, they either buy their way to the good stuff like the microtransaction-pushing publisher intended - or they cheat.
I think they specifically meant hacking to gain an advantage in PvP, which has existed in multiplayer games for way longer than XP progression and live services
Yeah idk, I mean I'm thinking about some games people hack in - Battlefield, warzone, valorant, cs go. I mean, the latter 2 don't even really have a serious progression issue, you can purchase all the weapons as a part of each game. Warzone and battlefield, I mean, you can be pretty competetive with guns you get near the start of the game. The most well rounded gun in warzone is the M4 and its the second gun you get, and your starter weapon is even better Stat wise.
I do agree with you that the grind is stupid as hell and is used to get people to spend a ridiculous amount of money to skip the grind. Personally I just view the "grind" as a secondary objective when im playing games, where my first objective is of course to win. But ultimately, I don't buy that these people are just hacking to get past the grind, and if they are that's still annoying as fuck as it just ruins the game for everyone else. Imo you don't get to cheat and ruin every one else's time just because you want to get a slightly better scope or whatever.
A lot of games - especially the live service ones - are more unpaid job than game with all the menial tasks you have to do daily, repeatedly, to get some reward. So, people automate that unfun grindy busywork, so that they may actually enjoy the fun parts of the game at their leisure.
It's also about time; some of these glorified Skinner boxes expect you to regularly pour a considerable amount of hours into them for a certain amount of time before you get access to some content - and some people simply don't have (or don't want to spend) time to get there. So, they either buy their way to the good stuff like the microtransaction-pushing publisher intended - or they cheat.
I think they specifically meant hacking to gain an advantage in PvP, which has existed in multiplayer games for way longer than XP progression and live services
Yeah idk, I mean I'm thinking about some games people hack in - Battlefield, warzone, valorant, cs go. I mean, the latter 2 don't even really have a serious progression issue, you can purchase all the weapons as a part of each game. Warzone and battlefield, I mean, you can be pretty competetive with guns you get near the start of the game. The most well rounded gun in warzone is the M4 and its the second gun you get, and your starter weapon is even better Stat wise.
I do agree with you that the grind is stupid as hell and is used to get people to spend a ridiculous amount of money to skip the grind. Personally I just view the "grind" as a secondary objective when im playing games, where my first objective is of course to win. But ultimately, I don't buy that these people are just hacking to get past the grind, and if they are that's still annoying as fuck as it just ruins the game for everyone else. Imo you don't get to cheat and ruin every one else's time just because you want to get a slightly better scope or whatever.