9 ms·

One thing that may surprise HN readers is the widespread support some of these tactics have among the gaming community. I distinctly remember Shroud (a popular

• dogma1138 5y ago
  I actually have no problem with criminalizing cheating to some extent, I’m not actually sure you need new laws for that since it should fall under existing computer misuse legislation and arguably you can also make a case for harassment and public nuisance. Even without it being a full on felony in jurisdictions that have that distinction it should expose you to civil suits because you are degrading a service and costing the company money. If you break into a paintball arena for example and start running around shooting everyone with your own gun you probably will get the cops called on you and they’ll drag you out and charge you with something. And heck even without breaking in if you simply disregard the rules and don’t leave when asked the cops will be called. That said you can support all of this without supporting being forced to install root kits and handing over the control of your devices to the game developer or publisher. The same goes for DRM, I honestly don’t see a problem if someone goes to jail for piracy I do care when companies use terrible DRM to protect their products.
  • rightbyte 5y ago
    > I actually have no problem with criminalizing cheating to some extent If it is criminal to cheat it is not a game anymore. On the other hand I would welcome hazard game regulations for all games with lottery ticket like products for sale, like "loot boxes".
    • dogma1138 5y ago
      I’m pretty sure it’s already criminal to use “hacks” to cheat. Abuse of game mechanics shouldn’t fall under that, tho I have no issue with banning people who do it knowingly and repeatedly after it’s been made clear it’s not an intended mechanic. We do (try) prevent cheating in sports and other games and ban players and in fact whole countries for cheating. Try cheating in a casino for example, card counting may get you thrown out, hacking a slot machine would land you in jail. Loot boxes are another issue they should be regulated as gambling I have no issue with thst.
      • Teever 5y ago
        I'm okay with criminal laws that punish people for cheating in games that have cash prizes but I really don't want to see that applied to everyday games. Let's so for old times sake I organize a lanparty with my friends from HS and during this event someone decides to turn on no clip to surprise their friends. Should this be criminal?
        • tylerhou 5y ago
          It depends on the harm done. Obviously if you’re playing with your friends there is likely no harm done. If you’re wasting 50+ other people’s time (e.g. FPS battle arenas) then you might want a harsher punishment. Of course there are degrees; I don’t think people should be thrown in jail for cheating in casual matches/pubs. But then if you cheat in a tournament where there are hundreds of thousands of $$$ at stake, jail time might be appropriate.
          • rightbyte 5y ago
            > But then if you cheat in a tournament where there are hundreds of thousands of $$$ at stake, jail time might be appropriate. Please no. I mean athletes are not thrown in jail for doping in most places. If cheating are to be illegal, it needs gambling regulation and supervision, even if just for pros. And I don't think that would end well.
  • DanteIlPoeta 5y ago
    I think you should touch grass.
  • gruez 5y ago
    >If you break into a paintball arena for example and start running around shooting everyone with your own gun you probably will get the cops called on you and they’ll drag you out and charge you with something. "your own gun" meaning a gun that fires bullets, or a paintball gun that's more powerful than that's allowed by regulations? If it's the former the police would be dragging you away because you're literally putting holes in people, but the latter case I'm skeptical they'll do anything. Are they going to arrest a competition bicyclist when they find out that they had a hidden motor in their bike?
    • johnny22 5y ago
      One could warn them to stop using their own equipment and then tell them to leave. If they don't, then you might start thinking about calling it Trespassing.
      • gruez 5y ago
        Right, but even in that circumstance I doubt the police (or any part of the justice system) is going to punish you for it. At worst you'll be asked to leave and the police will only show up if you refuse to do so. You're not allowed to bring your own snacks/beverages at a movie theater either, but the police isn't going to arrest you for it unless you refuse to leave.
  • Der_Einzige 5y ago
    Do you know how many unintended consequences that criminalizing cheating in video games are going to have? Many, many things can be defined as though it is a "game" or even a "video game". This is such a terrible policy decision, that I very much hope that no old fart in the US house or Senate ever has this idea. I worry every time that AOC plays league because she may run into the xearth scripter who causes here to have this very same "insight".
    • dogma1138 5y ago
      Again I stated that I don’t think new legislation is required computer misuse acts and civil litigation is more than adequate currently, ban cheaters find a way to issue a restraining order to prevent them from using your service and if they disobey it they are facing contempt which is a criminal offense. For the people that make money off selling cheats and or are disrupting the service at scale current laws that cover computer misuse should be sufficient. I am perfectly happy to have the book thrown at someone who hacks say a Minecraft server to fuck with someone just as I’m happy to see someone who breaks into someones property and ransacks it. Computer misuse, trespassing, public nuisance and property damage are already criminal offenses. Cheating in an online video game can easily fall into one or more of those categories.
• daneel_w 5y ago
  "I distinctly remember Shroud (a popular Twitch streamer and former CS:GO professional) asking for this (for PUBG) in 2018. I remember Chocotaco (another popular Twitch streamer) voicing support for South Korean laws[1] that criminalize cheating in video games." And what are the 99.9999% other players' opinion on this approach? Surely their collective voices weigh heavier than those of a handful celebrities.
  • zucker42 5y ago
    The point is that the celebrities' opinions are to an extent representative of the communities within which they are famous.
    • JadeNB 5y ago
      > The point is that the celebrities' opinions are to an extent representative of the communities within which they are famous. I think there's no particular reason to assume that the loudest and best-known voices in a community reflect the view of the broader community. (That's not to say anything about whether it's true here, just that I think it's far from a given, and, if true, is an additional data point rather than a consequence.)
      • zahis121 5y ago
        [flagged]
    • zahis121 5y ago
  • ncann 5y ago
    If you visit the subreddits for these games, most people support it as well. No one wants to have cheaters in their game.
    • daneel_w 5y ago
      True, no one wants that. It's an entirely unsurprising sentiment, really. But it's in no way whatsoever mutually exclusive with disliking this specific approach.
• asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  I would definitely support criminalizing cheating in video games. I also do not view Riot's running programs at times other than when I am playing in a negative light. What is the threat model? I've already let them own my computer via their rootkit, and their incentives are largely aligned with mine. Why should it matter when exactly their programs run?
• ryukafalz 5y ago
  I think most people don't fully understand the implications of things like this - it's not obvious in normal usage, so how would they? Cheating in online games is salient, but if you told the average person they had a program running on their computer, I imagine their answer would be "so?" But if it was clearly pointed out in the OS, and the OS said something along the lines of: "Riot anti-cheat is running in the background. This program may monitor all of your activity on this computer and track your physical location while you use your computer." ...more people might have some second thoughts.
  • fsdjkflsjfsoij 5y ago
    > This program may monitor all of your activity on this computer and track your physical location while you use your computer. What incentive would they have to do that? They currently are making ridiculous amounts of money and you think they're going to risk all of that to know trivial details about you? Most people aren't that interesting and the information that could be obtained is worth far, far less than the money they make by keeping their player base happy. A remote exploit in Vanguard is a much more reasonable concern.
    • sjtindell 5y ago
      Some of the most profitable companies in the world today are in the business of collecting seemingly menial metadata about you, creating a profile, and leveraging/selling it.
    • thingsgoup 5y ago
      I don’t think anyone is suggesting Riot would do anything underhanded. Ironically, the idea that only Riot will ever be able to leverage the capabilities of this software service is probably why many don’t mind running it. Unfortunately, that idea is flawed for the much the same reason the idea of backdooring encryption algorithms is flawed.
      • nyuszika7h 5y ago
        > Ironically, the idea that only Riot will ever be able to leverage the capabilities of this software service is probably why many don’t mind running it. Just wait until someone finds a vulnerability in Riot's anti-cheat software and abuses it for more sinister purposes. No software is ever completely bug-free.
• elliekelly 5y ago
  Criminalizing cheating in a game is insanity and I am shocked and appalled that this idea has so many supportive comments here. Here in the civilized world we should only be criminalizing conduct that causes actual harm. Not conduct that causes occasional frustration. What’s next? Shall we send the slippery fingered Monopoly Banker to actual jail, too? We’re talking about a game FFS.
  • fnord77 5y ago
    I'm not advocating criminalizing it, but it is essentially fraud in some contexts, especially where there's direct or indirect compensation for the players.
    • arcticbull 5y ago
      Would that then not be covered by extant laws?
      • _delirium 5y ago
        Yeah, and it is sometimes prosecuted under existing laws in that case. For example several people were successfully prosecuted in 2013 for a match-fixing scandal in English football: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_English_football_match-fixing_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_English_football_match-fi...
  • skinkestek 5y ago
    Criminalizing (i.e. permanent record, can't ever take certain jobs) is probably to far i 99.99% of the cases. Fining people who keeps on annoying others in a public context for no good reason (e.g. only for their own amusement) should be fine either they cheat in games, keep people awake at night by playing loud music in streets where this isn't common, harass kids playing on the playground etc etc. Edits: yes. Mostly clarification.
  • krapht 5y ago
    Define actual harm. You don't seem to hold the time of people who play games very highly.
• laumars 5y ago
  If you are a professional gamer then of course you’re going to hate cheats. It’s no different to professional athletes hating peers who take performance enhancing drugs. If your money and reputation comes from you being good at something, you’re going to dislike people who cheat. Edit (for clarity): the more senior you are in a sport, the more likely you are to support invasive countermeasures compared to hobbyists.
  • seoaeu 5y ago
    You say that like amateur athletes think more highly of cheaters. I'd say almost anyone would be unhappy about competing against opponents who don't play fairly
    • laumars 5y ago
      I say that because the GP seemed confused why pros were in favour of anti-cheat software.
  • bytehowl 5y ago
    Everyone who has at least two brain cells to rub together hates cheaters, in video games and otherwise.
    • laumars 5y ago
      My point is: the more serious you are into a sport, the more severe measures you’re likely to support to counter cheats. Hence why pros will support anti-cheat software while those who just play causally are more likely to find it abusive.
• swinglock 5y ago
  Cheating is a denial of service attack, affecting users and providers. It's like spam.
• dleslie 5y ago
  I'm a game developer; the demand from players for these measures is loud and persistent. The thing is that they're reasonably effective tools, and the harm, pain and misery caused by griefers and cheaters is real and widespread. And there's not really much of a technical alternative; the only other response to something like an aimbot is to design such that good aim isn't an advantage, and now you have a totally different game.
• aasasd 5y ago
  I mean, players' standard advice for modding and such is: download this executable mentioned in a forum post off some janky site or a filesharing service, disable the antivirus, run the thing with administrator privileges. Older people tend to see those who grew up in 2000-10s as proficient in computing, but I'm now sure that gamers' understanding of security is on the level of the famed “where's the ‘any’ key” secretary. Checksums for the linked files on our site dedicated to mod sharing? Dunno what you're talking about.
• aleksiy123 5y ago
  Another thing that may surprise HN readers is people are willing to pay for a stronger os level anti-cheat. When I used to play CS:GO a lot of higher level players would play on ESEA [1] or FACEIT [2] specifically because they had better cheat detection. Essentially an anti cheat, ladder, and matchmaking service provided by a 3rd party for a subscription. Players want cheater free games. [1] https://play.esea.net/ https://play.esea.net/ [2] https://www.faceit.com/ https://www.faceit.com/