3 ms·

Gamers don't want cheaters, but gamers also don't want malware. Some people won't care, others will care. The real problem is that publishers don't give anybody

by bogwog 2y ago

Gamers don't want cheaters, but gamers also don't want malware. Some people won't care, others will care. The real problem is that publishers don't give anybody a choice on this. They sneak these invasive anti-piracy measures into their games without asking since they don't want to fragment their player base. The reasonable, fair, common-sense pro-consumer thing to do is to split the online play in two: a non-anticheat server and an anti-cheat server. Players can opt-in to installing a rootkit/sharing their SSN/whatever if they want to play on the hardened server. This costs nothing, and makes all types of gamers happy. But doing this has less upside for the publisher than forcing anti-cheat on everyone. The only risk is that they might get dragged through the mud by a handful of influencers peddling impotent rage to viewers who are just looking for background noise while sleepwalking on their Temu dopamine treadmill live service of the month.

throw10920 2y ago
> The reasonable, fair, common-sense pro-consumer thing to do is to split the online play in two: a non-anticheat server and an anti-cheat server. Players can opt-in to installing a rootkit/sharing their SSN/whatever if they want to play on the hardened server. This costs nothing, and makes all types of gamers happy. This is a very good point! And I'd like to point out that there is an analogue to the problem of smurfing in online video games, and the corresponding solution, which is to require semi-unique ID to play (e.g. a phone number which can only be tied to one account at a time with a cool-off period when transferring between accounts). Valve does this for Dota 2, and smurfing is far, far less common than it is in League of Legends. Some League players complain that they don't want to give their phone number to Riot (which is entirely reasonable given that it's a subsidiary of Tencent), but if enough people don't want that, then Riot could simply split the ranked queue into two: one where (soft, ie phone #) identity verification is required, and one where it isn't. Riot won't do this, though, not because it wouldn't fix the problem (it would, as demonstrated by Valve), but because they profit from smurf accounts buying skins.
- 71bw 2y ago
  >but if enough people don't want that, then Riot could simply split the ranked queue into two: one where (soft, ie phone #) identity verification is required, and one where it isn't. The phone number requirement is only there if you want to play Clash. Normal ranked play works flawlessly with no number.
  - throw10920 2y ago
    Correct, that's the bad reality that I'm saying needs to be changed, because smurfing is rampant in normal ranked.
account42 2y ago
The problem is also largely caused by publishers/developers wanting live service games instead of providing a complete product that users can then run themselves (with community-hosted servers). This makes the developer responsible for weedng out bad actors and they will of course seek technical means rather than social means which don't scale as cheaply.

by bogwog 2y ago

throw10920 2y ago

> The reasonable, fair, common-sense pro-consumer thing to do is to split the online play in two: a non-anticheat server and an anti-cheat server. Players can opt-in to installing a rootkit/sharing their SSN/whatever if they want to play on the hardened server. This costs nothing, and makes all types of gamers happy. This is a very good point! And I'd like to point out that there is an analogue to the problem of smurfing in online video games, and the corresponding solution, which is to require semi-unique ID to play (e.g. a phone number which can only be tied to one account at a time with a cool-off period when transferring between accounts). Valve does this for Dota 2, and smurfing is far, far less common than it is in League of Legends. Some League players complain that they don't want to give their phone number to Riot (which is entirely reasonable given that it's a subsidiary of Tencent), but if enough people don't want that, then Riot could simply split the ranked queue into two: one where (soft, ie phone #) identity verification is required, and one where it isn't. Riot won't do this, though, not because it wouldn't fix the problem (it would, as demonstrated by Valve), but because they profit from smurf accounts buying skins.

71bw 2y ago
>but if enough people don't want that, then Riot could simply split the ranked queue into two: one where (soft, ie phone #) identity verification is required, and one where it isn't. The phone number requirement is only there if you want to play Clash. Normal ranked play works flawlessly with no number.
- throw10920 2y ago
  Correct, that's the bad reality that I'm saying needs to be changed, because smurfing is rampant in normal ranked.

account42 2y ago

The problem is also largely caused by publishers/developers wanting live service games instead of providing a complete product that users can then run themselves (with community-hosted servers). This makes the developer responsible for weedng out bad actors and they will of course seek technical means rather than social means which don't scale as cheaply.