4 ms·

I have been working in the industry now for 11 years, and this defeatism surrounding anticheat is frustrating. Especially when Epics anticheat which used to be

by dijit 1y ago

I have been working in the industry now for 11 years, and this defeatism surrounding anticheat is frustrating. Especially when Epics anticheat which used to be free to use, supports linux.

Marsymars 1y ago
Is it defeatism? I don’t game on Linux and generally like Windows, but from a principle and security perspective I’d preferably check a box on Windows to disallow any kernel-level anticheat from installing, and avoid any such games.
- dijit 1y ago
  That’s fine, then those games are not available to you. I’ll be honest, no matter how unpopular it is I’m really sorry, but those kind of solutions genuinely are the only way. I’ve said it before on HN, but we really do try everything. And not having anything leads to some of the worst experiences possible. If you genuinely have a better solution, then you are more than welcome to enter the industry and make a significant amount of money. Hell, I’ll offer you a job right now.
  - ndriscoll 1y ago
    Simple solution that makes everyone happy: make it optional. Anticheat was optional in pretty much every 00s game that had it, and even in the servers that had it disabled, cheating was still rarely an issue. Diablo 2 even let you still bring your single player characters that you could obviously cheat with (which everyone knew from Diablo 1) onto Open Battle.net. Make the Internet optional like it used to be while you're at it with LAN/direct IP support so you can stick to friends only and keep your purchase forever. Oh but then you can't make all of your revenue on stuff like gambling for textures that anyone could just mod in like they used to.
    - dijit 1y ago
      Interesting thought, maybe I do this in my next game. I doubt it will show what you expect, but hey, I’ve been wrong before.
  - Marsymars 1y ago
    > That’s fine, then those games are not available to you. See, this is my problem. I have no interest in online multiplayer, so anti-cheat is purely of negative value to me. I understand the problem with cheaters, and if I did play multiplayer games, I'd want every effort taken to eliminate cheating. I'd be perfectly happy if I could uncheck the "anti-cheat and online capabilities" checkbox in the game installer (or have it default unchecked when the OS indicates that anticheat isn't supported), and I could go on my way and play my single player game. IMO that's a better solution technically, and for me personally, but I don't know that there's much money to be made in sales to single-player-only non-microtransaction-consuming gamers who were otherwise forgoing games.
    - cortesoft 1y ago
      A lot of games do have this feature.
ndriscoll 1y ago
What does defeatism mean here? As opposed to lobbying our representatives to make DRM (of which anticheat is a subset) or product tying restrictions (e.g. artificially requiring something to run on Windows/Xbox or Google Android or a Switch when a generic computer is perfectly capable of running it) illegal or something?
- dijit 1y ago
  kernel level anticheat is a chicken and egg problem. No game developers of seriously looking at enabling even in the cases where it is extremely easy and trivial to enable, because the additional support button isn’t considered worth it for the number of users as they might get. so when I say it’s defeatist, what I mean is all you have to do is vote with your wallet enough and the games will follow. I know this an absolute fact because I’ve been in this conversation many times.
  - ndriscoll 1y ago
    Kernel-level DRM isn't a chicken/egg problem; it's completely at odds with people who are choosing to run an OS that obeys them instead of some random third party like Microsoft/Google/Apple on hardware they own. Voting with their wallet is precisely what the other user said they do.
    - dijit 1y ago
      I don’t really know who you’re talking to? Your options are, 1. Buy Windows. Means you has absolutely no control. 2. Promote the development of anti-cheat on the linux, where you can not install it because you don’t like it. No idea that you’re arguing against me, when all I’m doing is arguing for increased amount of freedom is tad silly.. no?
      - pjmlp 1y ago
        Most gamers go with 3., buy a XBox, Playstation, Nintendo, or 4., stick with mobile games, in both cases go with a walled garden solution.

by dijit 1y ago

I have been working in the industry now for 11 years, and this defeatism surrounding anticheat is frustrating. Especially when Epics anticheat which used to be free to use, supports linux.

Marsymars 1y ago

Is it defeatism? I don’t game on Linux and generally like Windows, but from a principle and security perspective I’d preferably check a box on Windows to disallow any kernel-level anticheat from installing, and avoid any such games.

dijit 1y ago
That’s fine, then those games are not available to you. I’ll be honest, no matter how unpopular it is I’m really sorry, but those kind of solutions genuinely are the only way. I’ve said it before on HN, but we really do try everything. And not having anything leads to some of the worst experiences possible. If you genuinely have a better solution, then you are more than welcome to enter the industry and make a significant amount of money. Hell, I’ll offer you a job right now.
- ndriscoll 1y ago
  Simple solution that makes everyone happy: make it optional. Anticheat was optional in pretty much every 00s game that had it, and even in the servers that had it disabled, cheating was still rarely an issue. Diablo 2 even let you still bring your single player characters that you could obviously cheat with (which everyone knew from Diablo 1) onto Open Battle.net. Make the Internet optional like it used to be while you're at it with LAN/direct IP support so you can stick to friends only and keep your purchase forever. Oh but then you can't make all of your revenue on stuff like gambling for textures that anyone could just mod in like they used to.
  - dijit 1y ago
    Interesting thought, maybe I do this in my next game. I doubt it will show what you expect, but hey, I’ve been wrong before.
- Marsymars 1y ago
  > That’s fine, then those games are not available to you. See, this is my problem. I have no interest in online multiplayer, so anti-cheat is purely of negative value to me. I understand the problem with cheaters, and if I did play multiplayer games, I'd want every effort taken to eliminate cheating. I'd be perfectly happy if I could uncheck the "anti-cheat and online capabilities" checkbox in the game installer (or have it default unchecked when the OS indicates that anticheat isn't supported), and I could go on my way and play my single player game. IMO that's a better solution technically, and for me personally, but I don't know that there's much money to be made in sales to single-player-only non-microtransaction-consuming gamers who were otherwise forgoing games.
  - cortesoft 1y ago
    A lot of games do have this feature.

ndriscoll 1y ago

What does defeatism mean here? As opposed to lobbying our representatives to make DRM (of which anticheat is a subset) or product tying restrictions (e.g. artificially requiring something to run on Windows/Xbox or Google Android or a Switch when a generic computer is perfectly capable of running it) illegal or something?

dijit 1y ago
kernel level anticheat is a chicken and egg problem. No game developers of seriously looking at enabling even in the cases where it is extremely easy and trivial to enable, because the additional support button isn’t considered worth it for the number of users as they might get. so when I say it’s defeatist, what I mean is all you have to do is vote with your wallet enough and the games will follow. I know this an absolute fact because I’ve been in this conversation many times.
- ndriscoll 1y ago
  Kernel-level DRM isn't a chicken/egg problem; it's completely at odds with people who are choosing to run an OS that obeys them instead of some random third party like Microsoft/Google/Apple on hardware they own. Voting with their wallet is precisely what the other user said they do.
  - dijit 1y ago
    I don’t really know who you’re talking to? Your options are, 1. Buy Windows. Means you has absolutely no control. 2. Promote the development of anti-cheat on the linux, where you can not install it because you don’t like it. No idea that you’re arguing against me, when all I’m doing is arguing for increased amount of freedom is tad silly.. no?
    - pjmlp 1y ago
      Most gamers go with 3., buy a XBox, Playstation, Nintendo, or 4., stick with mobile games, in both cases go with a walled garden solution.