Exclusives | Apr 04, 2024 09:13 PM EDT

Top 10 Video Games With The Most Cheaters: 'GTA 5' Is Just Third

By Floralyn Teodoro

GTA — (Photo : Cate Gillon/Getty Images) A young man plays Grand Theft Auto IV on the game's day of release on April 29, 2008 in London, England.

A new study by a game guide publisher sheds light on the video games with the highest number of cheaters in the U.S.

Guide Strats recently analyzed the search volume of popular video games and related key terms across the country.

For the study, Guide Strats created a list of 120 popular video games and another list of key terms related to video game cheats, which they later applied to each video game.

The 15 key terms added after the name of the video games included "cheat," "cheats ps4," "cheats Xbox One," "cheat codes," "hack," "aimbot," "aimbot download," "mod," "console commands," "cheat engine," "download cheat engine," "code," "ring cheat engine," "ring mods" and "ring cheats."

Afterward, using Google Keyword Planner, the publisher gathered the monthly and annual Google Search volume data for the key phrases and terms across the United States and per state.

With the data they obtained, they compared the total number of monthly average searches per state against its population and established the monthly average searches per 100,000 people. This reportedly allowed for an accurate comparison of the search rate across estates of differing sizes.

Lastly, they sorted all the information and ranked the games based on their highest average monthly search volume.

E-Sports — A contestant plays a computer game during the "E-Stars Seoul 2007" game festival hosted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government at Seoul Olympic Park on August 9, 2007 in Seoul, South Korea.
(Photo : Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

"Over the years, cheating has become a normalized part of gaming, yet it remains a divisive topic. While some see no harm in looking up the odd cheat code, others believe that it ruins the experience of the game," said Guide Strats head of branding Candace Healy on the findings.

"It must be said, though, that cheating can often take away the fun of online games, such as downloading an 'aimbot' on 'Fortnite' for a higher team score. As this study proves, there is a growing epidemic of cheaters in the gaming community."

Based on the study findings, here are the 10 video games with the most cheaters in the country: