3 ms·

With the rise of esports there is a lot of money to be made with no real consequences. It isn't illegal to essentially steal prize money by cheating at a video

With the rise of esports there is a lot of money to be made with no real consequences. It isn't illegal to essentially steal prize money by cheating at a video game. Also game streaming is big now and being "good" attracts more viewers so there is also a lot of money to be made by cheating. I have completely stopped taking video games seriously in any capacity as I am pretty confident the entire culture of competitive gaming is completely infested with cheating.

mstade 7y ago
Are there online e-sports tournaments of any meaningful size? (E.g. $1000+ prizes) The only tournaments I've seen amount to essentially LAN parties where all the equipment and installations are provided by the tournament, such that players all compete on fair terms and unable to cheat (unless the opsec at the tournament is terrible, I guess.)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Buttons840 7y ago
Any competitive game with big money on the line has the top players gather in the same room (on a stage most likely), and play using computers controlled by the event organizers. The players winning these big tournaments do not cheat.
- ronald_dregan 7y ago
  there used to be a way to embed cheats within your steam profile directly (abusing some other feature to do so) and it'd activate on login. some guy got caught in a tournament using one. they probably dont let people sign into their own accounts anymore lol
- izzydata 7y ago
  You aren't thinking outside the box enough. If you could commission cheating software for $10,000+ then there is plenty you could do to circumvent the PCs being provided. It should also be noted that they allow self provided peripherals in most cases.
  - Buttons840 7y ago
    An interesting idea. Now I'm curious. First, has there ever been an example of someone caught cheating this way? Second, what kinds of cheats would you expect using peripherals? Any visual cheats would likely be detected, since player's screens are often viewed by referees and/or televised. I suppose an audio based cheat is conceivable. The screen and the audio are the only output from most computer games.
    - izzydata 7y ago
      https://hackaday.com/2017/07/29/injecting-code-into-mouse-firmware-should-be-your-next-hack/ https://hackaday.com/2017/07/29/injecting-code-into-mouse-fi... Aimbots these days look almost indistinguishable from good playing. The point isn't to be perfect. It's to give some kind of competitive edge. If you can take even 15% of the effort away then you can focus on other things.
yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
If there's money on the line, I'm surprised if it really isn't illegal? At a minimum, I would expect that to be easy lawsuit territory.
smolder 7y ago
I've run into people with this attitude before - they are quick to accuse good players of cheating who seem (to them,) to have inhuman accuracy. I've been accused of cheating many many times, despite never cheating. I was blacklisted from a community counterstrike server back in 2002 or so for "cheating" after a lucky couple games where I got a LOT of headshots with guns that aren't very good accuracy wise. I was playing with very good players, and even some of them thought I was running cheats. My experience says people vastly underestimate how far a good lucky streak and adequate reaction time + aim can take someone. Plenty of friends have similar experiences of being accused of cheating when they play well. It probably doesn't help that the asynchronous client-server model of fast paced FPS games introduces weird effects with respect to latency. (I.e. rewriting history to show some high-latency player killed you after you've already observed visual/audio effects for their own death.)
hnick 7y ago
DIOL (Do It On LAN) has been an acronym in online games for a couple of decades now, for good reason. Though I've heard now it's possible to load your USB peripherals with cheating software. https://hackaday.com/2017/07/29/injecting-code-into-mouse-firmware-should-be-your-next-hack/ https://hackaday.com/2017/07/29/injecting-code-into-mouse-fi...

mstade 7y ago

Are there online e-sports tournaments of any meaningful size? (E.g. $1000+ prizes) The only tournaments I've seen amount to essentially LAN parties where all the equipment and installations are provided by the tournament, such that players all compete on fair terms and unable to cheat (unless the opsec at the tournament is terrible, I guess.)

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Buttons840 7y ago

Any competitive game with big money on the line has the top players gather in the same room (on a stage most likely), and play using computers controlled by the event organizers. The players winning these big tournaments do not cheat.

ronald_dregan 7y ago
there used to be a way to embed cheats within your steam profile directly (abusing some other feature to do so) and it'd activate on login. some guy got caught in a tournament using one. they probably dont let people sign into their own accounts anymore lol
izzydata 7y ago
You aren't thinking outside the box enough. If you could commission cheating software for $10,000+ then there is plenty you could do to circumvent the PCs being provided. It should also be noted that they allow self provided peripherals in most cases.
- Buttons840 7y ago
  An interesting idea. Now I'm curious. First, has there ever been an example of someone caught cheating this way? Second, what kinds of cheats would you expect using peripherals? Any visual cheats would likely be detected, since player's screens are often viewed by referees and/or televised. I suppose an audio based cheat is conceivable. The screen and the audio are the only output from most computer games.
  - izzydata 7y ago
    https://hackaday.com/2017/07/29/injecting-code-into-mouse-firmware-should-be-your-next-hack/ https://hackaday.com/2017/07/29/injecting-code-into-mouse-fi... Aimbots these days look almost indistinguishable from good playing. The point isn't to be perfect. It's to give some kind of competitive edge. If you can take even 15% of the effort away then you can focus on other things.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago

If there's money on the line, I'm surprised if it really isn't illegal? At a minimum, I would expect that to be easy lawsuit territory.

smolder 7y ago

I've run into people with this attitude before - they are quick to accuse good players of cheating who seem (to them,) to have inhuman accuracy. I've been accused of cheating many many times, despite never cheating. I was blacklisted from a community counterstrike server back in 2002 or so for "cheating" after a lucky couple games where I got a LOT of headshots with guns that aren't very good accuracy wise. I was playing with very good players, and even some of them thought I was running cheats. My experience says people vastly underestimate how far a good lucky streak and adequate reaction time + aim can take someone. Plenty of friends have similar experiences of being accused of cheating when they play well. It probably doesn't help that the asynchronous client-server model of fast paced FPS games introduces weird effects with respect to latency. (I.e. rewriting history to show some high-latency player killed you after you've already observed visual/audio effects for their own death.)

hnick 7y ago

DIOL (Do It On LAN) has been an acronym in online games for a couple of decades now, for good reason. Though I've heard now it's possible to load your USB peripherals with cheating software. https://hackaday.com/2017/07/29/injecting-code-into-mouse-firmware-should-be-your-next-hack/ https://hackaday.com/2017/07/29/injecting-code-into-mouse-fi...