8 ms·

How about no? This will just lead these companies to implement anti-cheat to protect the "integrity" of their single player games (and their MTX) as well. Say g

How about no? This will just lead these companies to implement anti-cheat to protect the "integrity" of their single player games (and their MTX) as well. Say goodbye to mods and other forms of benign game hacking (particularly hacks that fix games like Dark Souls).

divbzero 5y ago
Would it be in a game company’s interest to implement anti-cheat for single player games? Mods and other forms of benign game hacking increase the popularity and longevity of games which presumably benefit profitability.
- grp000 5y ago
  I don't think it's a question of "would", it's a question of "why", since that's what's going on right now. You can point to single player paid cosmetics as a profiteering aspect. Greedy executives who care about short-term quarterly sales numbers for bonuses and stock influencing maybe aswell? I wouldn't consider myself knowledgeable of the game industry, but that's one of my bets.
- krono 5y ago
  EA and Rockstar banned people from Battlefield 5 multiplayer and GTA online for having modded their single player games. Google for a few minutes and you'll come across plenty of horror stories and news items. But of course the real reason they would love to prevent anyone from tampering with the game is so they can sell more single player cheats such as experience booster packs.
  - maccard 5y ago
    They do? I googled it and it's full of "I accidentally left my mods on and connected to GTAO and got banned", not " I was banned for playing modded single player games"
    - krono 5y ago
      Yeah, listed some random hits for you below. I don't personally play either game, but from what I've come across on the subject over the years, publishers seem to be a lot less difficult about it today compared to a few years ago. I recall reading about them denying a ban was due to mod use when they were wrong, being ridiculously vague about what modding was and what wasn't allowed, refusing to fully restore a player's character even after a ban was rescinded, etc. https://www.pcgamer.com/gta-online-players-report-multiple-unfair-bans-following-latest-update/ https://www.pcgamer.com/gta-online-players-report-multiple-u... https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/g139nu/eas_volunteer_mods_are_banning_and_silencing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/g139nu/eas_volunt... Interesting edge case: https://www.pcgamer.com/gtav-modders-reportedly-banned-for-creating-their-own-online-realm/ https://www.pcgamer.com/gtav-modders-reportedly-banned-for-c...
    - atatatat 5y ago
      If you leave a program running that you were using to make Michael's face into a school bus, in a perfect world that shouldn't be grounds to ban etc.
      - maccard 5y ago
        Unfortunately for you, that program is indistinguishable from one that replaces walls with transparent textures.
    - lobocinza 5y ago
      Yep. https://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/25o2411812k472/asked-answered-the-rockstar-editor-gta-online-updates https://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/25o2411812k47... Banning on single player would be silly. But GTAO is another story. It's designed as a cash farm. You have to grind missions, buy shark cards or use cheats. So as I understand they will ban anyone if they detect it's using mods/cheats. But GTA anti-cheat systems are weak and sessions are P2P or at least were.
  - dijit 5y ago
    Both of those games have multiplayer components. I would be more interested to hear about games such as god of war or horizon zero dawn, which have no online play at all, used anti-cheat.
gambiting 5y ago
Rampant cheating in online FPS games is a problem right now. I've had more games ruined by cheaters than I can count. So how about yes, let's focus on fixing the problem at hand, and if it's used for something else(like single player games) then I'll complain about it. Right now developers have my full support to use whatever methods they can to make sure the hackers stay out. The game can boot into its own OS for all I care.
- VortexDream 5y ago
  By the time it becomes a problem, it'll be too late to reverse. You think publishers will willingly give up the ability lock down their games on PCs? It's been their dream for decades. I'd rather not give up what we can do with the software we've paid for (and I don't care what some piece of crap ToS says I can or cannot do with the software), just so you get less cheaters in online games.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    But that's really not a great place to use this argument - this isn't surveillance infrastructure or encryption backdoors where yes, once it's built a) it will be used for nefarious purposes b) it's really hard to get rid of. Game sandboxing is already very easy to achieve(at least on windows) and doesn't require any special software to be developed or deployed. It's all part of the Microsoft GDK and is already used - a recent game that is deployed like that is The Ascent, which deservedly got into a lot of shit over it, because the Gamepass version runs poorly compared to the non-sandboxed version on Steam. Likewise, other games that have done this suffer for it and publishers shy away from it, just how aggressive DRM gets a lot of pushback and publishers either don't include it or are forced to remove it post launch. That's why I'm not really worried about this tech "spilling" to single player games to protect MTX or anything like that, but I'd really really really like to see it deployed as aggressively as physically possible in online competitive games.
    - foerbert 5y ago
      I think it's probably the correct argument to use. As you pointed out, what the vast majority of gamers will respond to is performance. In order to get performance, you have to start cutting other areas like graphics. However, those are other important aspects - maybe particularly to marketing. The reason it's not palatable enough to be widespread is because of it's technical limitations. If you throw enough resources at the matter to remove those limitations, you won't see all the pressure you're mentioning that keep companies from making maximal use of this kind of tech in all games all the time. I'm pretty comfortable erring on the side of caution here. Cheaters are rather annoying, but at least it's a relatively contained problem with a fairly wide range of options for how I want to respond to it. Worst case, I can go try to find a smaller community or even just go play another game. Meanwhile, most every game being fully locked down in all the ways... I can't really do jack about that.
mminer237 5y ago
They could do that regardless. Anti-cheat already exists in many forms. They just don't because it adds work for little gain.
- VortexDream 5y ago
  They could, but if Microsoft provides a native sandbox that publishers can default into without extra effort that effectively protects "their" property from meddling by nosy end-users, they absolutely will. It'll become a standard instead of some fringe practice. Right now the only real options are Denuvo and server-side processing. Microsoft is in a position now with W11 to change that in a fundamental way.

divbzero 5y ago

Would it be in a game company’s interest to implement anti-cheat for single player games? Mods and other forms of benign game hacking increase the popularity and longevity of games which presumably benefit profitability.

grp000 5y ago
I don't think it's a question of "would", it's a question of "why", since that's what's going on right now. You can point to single player paid cosmetics as a profiteering aspect. Greedy executives who care about short-term quarterly sales numbers for bonuses and stock influencing maybe aswell? I wouldn't consider myself knowledgeable of the game industry, but that's one of my bets.
krono 5y ago
EA and Rockstar banned people from Battlefield 5 multiplayer and GTA online for having modded their single player games. Google for a few minutes and you'll come across plenty of horror stories and news items. But of course the real reason they would love to prevent anyone from tampering with the game is so they can sell more single player cheats such as experience booster packs.
- maccard 5y ago
  They do? I googled it and it's full of "I accidentally left my mods on and connected to GTAO and got banned", not " I was banned for playing modded single player games"
  - krono 5y ago
    Yeah, listed some random hits for you below. I don't personally play either game, but from what I've come across on the subject over the years, publishers seem to be a lot less difficult about it today compared to a few years ago. I recall reading about them denying a ban was due to mod use when they were wrong, being ridiculously vague about what modding was and what wasn't allowed, refusing to fully restore a player's character even after a ban was rescinded, etc. https://www.pcgamer.com/gta-online-players-report-multiple-unfair-bans-following-latest-update/ https://www.pcgamer.com/gta-online-players-report-multiple-u... https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/g139nu/eas_volunteer_mods_are_banning_and_silencing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/g139nu/eas_volunt... Interesting edge case: https://www.pcgamer.com/gtav-modders-reportedly-banned-for-creating-their-own-online-realm/ https://www.pcgamer.com/gtav-modders-reportedly-banned-for-c...
  - atatatat 5y ago
    If you leave a program running that you were using to make Michael's face into a school bus, in a perfect world that shouldn't be grounds to ban etc.
    - maccard 5y ago
      Unfortunately for you, that program is indistinguishable from one that replaces walls with transparent textures.
  - lobocinza 5y ago
    Yep. https://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/25o2411812k472/asked-answered-the-rockstar-editor-gta-online-updates https://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/25o2411812k47... Banning on single player would be silly. But GTAO is another story. It's designed as a cash farm. You have to grind missions, buy shark cards or use cheats. So as I understand they will ban anyone if they detect it's using mods/cheats. But GTA anti-cheat systems are weak and sessions are P2P or at least were.
- dijit 5y ago
  Both of those games have multiplayer components. I would be more interested to hear about games such as god of war or horizon zero dawn, which have no online play at all, used anti-cheat.

gambiting 5y ago

Rampant cheating in online FPS games is a problem right now. I've had more games ruined by cheaters than I can count. So how about yes, let's focus on fixing the problem at hand, and if it's used for something else(like single player games) then I'll complain about it. Right now developers have my full support to use whatever methods they can to make sure the hackers stay out. The game can boot into its own OS for all I care.

VortexDream 5y ago
By the time it becomes a problem, it'll be too late to reverse. You think publishers will willingly give up the ability lock down their games on PCs? It's been their dream for decades. I'd rather not give up what we can do with the software we've paid for (and I don't care what some piece of crap ToS says I can or cannot do with the software), just so you get less cheaters in online games.
- gambiting 5y ago
  But that's really not a great place to use this argument - this isn't surveillance infrastructure or encryption backdoors where yes, once it's built a) it will be used for nefarious purposes b) it's really hard to get rid of. Game sandboxing is already very easy to achieve(at least on windows) and doesn't require any special software to be developed or deployed. It's all part of the Microsoft GDK and is already used - a recent game that is deployed like that is The Ascent, which deservedly got into a lot of shit over it, because the Gamepass version runs poorly compared to the non-sandboxed version on Steam. Likewise, other games that have done this suffer for it and publishers shy away from it, just how aggressive DRM gets a lot of pushback and publishers either don't include it or are forced to remove it post launch. That's why I'm not really worried about this tech "spilling" to single player games to protect MTX or anything like that, but I'd really really really like to see it deployed as aggressively as physically possible in online competitive games.
  - foerbert 5y ago
    I think it's probably the correct argument to use. As you pointed out, what the vast majority of gamers will respond to is performance. In order to get performance, you have to start cutting other areas like graphics. However, those are other important aspects - maybe particularly to marketing. The reason it's not palatable enough to be widespread is because of it's technical limitations. If you throw enough resources at the matter to remove those limitations, you won't see all the pressure you're mentioning that keep companies from making maximal use of this kind of tech in all games all the time. I'm pretty comfortable erring on the side of caution here. Cheaters are rather annoying, but at least it's a relatively contained problem with a fairly wide range of options for how I want to respond to it. Worst case, I can go try to find a smaller community or even just go play another game. Meanwhile, most every game being fully locked down in all the ways... I can't really do jack about that.

mminer237 5y ago

They could do that regardless. Anti-cheat already exists in many forms. They just don't because it adds work for little gain.

VortexDream 5y ago
They could, but if Microsoft provides a native sandbox that publishers can default into without extra effort that effectively protects "their" property from meddling by nosy end-users, they absolutely will. It'll become a standard instead of some fringe practice. Right now the only real options are Denuvo and server-side processing. Microsoft is in a position now with W11 to change that in a fundamental way.