Several of the assumptions in your post are flawed, which undermines your whole argument.
> Cheating is only a big problem in competitive gaming, where there are rewards (status, monetary, or both) for moving up the global ranking
This is untrue, cheating was until recently a huge problem for team fortress 2 which hasn't been competitive for years.
See also the huge cheating problems in the CoD games from the Xbox 360 era, which was before they were competitive outside of small, grassroots tournaments.
> The addition of match-making further prevents the kind of grouping casual players prefer
Players overwhelmingly do not prefer server browsing. Games have consolidated on the matchmaking model because any game without it is dead on arrival.
The biggest example of a game with a foot still in both worlds is Counterstrike, where the overwhelming use of custom servers is for external matchmaking services with stricter anti cheat than Valves VAC.
> Unfortunately, I think companies figured out that pro gamers are where the money is made, so they're willing to screw the majority of the players to streamline costs and hopefully create more wannabe-pros that can be monetized.
Again this is just not true - the revenue and profit of casual games dwarfs competitive games. Check out a recent financial report from ActiBlizzard and see how much money they make from competitive games like Overwatch and CoD compared to their mobile sub company, King.
Pro circuits and pro game modes are advertising expenses, not revenue or profit centers. Arguably the biggest pro game in the world, Counterstrike, makes the vast ,majority of it's money selling lootboxes and taking a cut on skin trades.
> Again this is just not true - the revenue and profit of casual games dwarfs competitive games.
This is actually very, very true. Most esports departments are not incredibly profitable (I actually worked for one of the biggest esports gaming companies for a long time and it was a constant source of friction how much money was spent on esports versus the return on it).
At the end of the day, cheating is a dopamine hit: killing the whole lobby in 2-seconds by holding down a button makes people feel good and you can't fight against that without some pretty drastic measures.
> Cheating is only a big problem in competitive gaming, where there are rewards (status, monetary, or both) for moving up the global ranking
This is untrue, cheating was until recently a huge problem for team fortress 2 which hasn't been competitive for years.
See also the huge cheating problems in the CoD games from the Xbox 360 era, which was before they were competitive outside of small, grassroots tournaments.
> The addition of match-making further prevents the kind of grouping casual players prefer
Players overwhelmingly do not prefer server browsing. Games have consolidated on the matchmaking model because any game without it is dead on arrival.
The biggest example of a game with a foot still in both worlds is Counterstrike, where the overwhelming use of custom servers is for external matchmaking services with stricter anti cheat than Valves VAC.
> Unfortunately, I think companies figured out that pro gamers are where the money is made, so they're willing to screw the majority of the players to streamline costs and hopefully create more wannabe-pros that can be monetized.
Again this is just not true - the revenue and profit of casual games dwarfs competitive games. Check out a recent financial report from ActiBlizzard and see how much money they make from competitive games like Overwatch and CoD compared to their mobile sub company, King.
Pro circuits and pro game modes are advertising expenses, not revenue or profit centers. Arguably the biggest pro game in the world, Counterstrike, makes the vast ,majority of it's money selling lootboxes and taking a cut on skin trades.