4 ms·

Of course but if a game has malware the publisher would get insta ban from these platform.

• greenthrow 4y ago
  Depends if our definition of malware and Valve, EA, etc.'s are the same.
  • starburst 4y ago
    True, it's still technically a possibility. I guess my point was more that everyone seems to buy in the tabloid reporting that unity games installer will now be filled with malware when this merging is clearly meant that they want to add more Ads into unity games. And showing interstitial Ads in a game is not the same as malware.
    • 0x6c6f6c 4y ago
      > clearly meant that they want to add more Ads into unity games That is only your interpretation of the purchase. Unless you have insider information you don't know what their true intentions are. They could have purchased a more reputable company with the same goal you mentioned.
  • sam0x17 4y ago
    Pretty much all anti-cheat software meets the definition of malware
    • starburst 4y ago
      They share similarity, but they are still seen as two separate categories of software. The malware discussed above is absolutely not the same as DRM / Anti-cheat that are bundled in most games today and bundling something that is definitely a "malware" will get you kicked off those platform whereas DRM / Anti-cheat is tolerated.
      • buran77 4y ago
        > They share similarity, but they are still seen as two separate categories of software Malware isn't really a uniform category of software. They can be harmful in a lot of different ways. Something like a kernel level anti-cheat is malware in almost every sense of the name except the developer's promise that it's not doing anything nasty. And there's a long list of DRM that affects the performance, security, or stability of the system while most users aren't aware this is happening or why. They install a game, everything else that comes with it is realistically hidden just like any malware. So while you could group them in different categories, many forms of DRM are malware in form and function.
        • starburst 4y ago
          What matters here is the definition from those platform on what is considered "Malware". Not our philosophical definition of it. How would you call a "Malware" as describe above versus a "Malware" DRM / Anti-cheat. There is a clear separation between the two for those platforms.
          • skinnymuch 4y ago
            What matters is how the platforms behave. Power and money defines how platforms behave, not their temporary principles or stances.
          • sam0x17 4y ago
            The philosophical definition is what is being discussed because at the end of the day that is all we have. There is no hard-coded, software-defined definition for malware other than the loose, varying definitions baked into anti-malware programs and services, that are based on our philosophical definition and frequently experience false positives and negatives. Conversely, there are very precise definitions for things like a regular expression or a hash table, but malware isn't like that. To say it is "our" philosophical definition is also a bit farsical -- malware is defined by the corporations that own the anti-malware companies. We don't have much say in what that definition is, in practice. But sticking with a philosophical defintion, malware is a very fuzzy category, and that line is so blurred as to essentially not be there in the case of anti-cheat programs and services, which effectively spy on the user (malware behavior) for financial gain (having a gaming platform that doesn't have a large number of cheaters) and often employ malware tactics like rootkits, VM detection, process inspection, etc.. Similairly Google Analytics definitely meets the criteria we generally use to define malware (spyware in that case) if you raise the bar a bit for things running in the browser.
• Schroedingersat 4y ago
  And yet 'anticheat' software and drm still exists.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]