Ray believes the rise in online cheating began when games became more than just a hobby for some players. “With the rise of pro gamers, it means a lot more than just having fun”, Ray said. With more and more money becoming available and allowing players to actually have a career playing games, Ray said there are players who would do things like cheat in order to win the prize money. The other big reason for the rampant cheating, according to Ray, was that until programs like Punkbuster there was no real way to deal with cheaters in the first place. “If there was no deterrent against crime we would have a lot worse crime rate than we would have today,” Ray said as an example. As stated above, Punkbuster was created for use in Half-Life and Counter-Strike and the success of the programmed pleased Ray and the other members of the team who helped to develop and test it, “We did actually hope it would be this successful, “he said. After Punkbuster and other anti-cheating programs were released, Half-Life developers Valve Software decided to create their own ways of defeating cheaters which made programs like Punkbuster no longer work with those game. Ray declined to comment to HomeLAN about his opinions about Valve’s anti-cheating methods for Half-Life, saying he didn't know enough about Valve's plans to comment.