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I haven't been a hardcore gamer in nearly 2 decades (think Half-Life, original CS), so forgive the ignorance; but why do game publishers care whether users cheat? I mean it's not like it costs them money--you're buying the game either way. I guess maybe in a MOOG it ruins the experience for other players if you show up with a gazzilion resources, but other than those games, so what if you leveled up quickly? why spend dev effort on trying to stop it?

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People might not buy a game if they don't think they'll get a fair play experience.

A game that is overrun by cheaters makes it less fun to regular players. If regular players don’t want to play your game, it ends up being a hacker circle jerk before the servers stop getting consistent players at which point the game is dead. And a dead game is not interesting to potential buyers which affects the publishers revenue stream.

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