The story of anti-cheating tech
Who here hasn’t used “rosebud” in the Sims franchise to gain massive amounts of (very badly needed) cash? Maybe you’re more into the God Mode in Goldeneye 007? How about accidentally corrupting your saved game in Pokemon Red and Blue trying to catch Missing No.?
People have been looking to gain unfair advantage since we learned to interact with one another and gaming is no exception. Cheating has been a part of video games since inception and as long as games get more and more interactive, cheats will do so as well.
Cheating has come a long way since slowing down the opponent’s paddle in Pong (1972). These days we have bots that can help us aim our rifles better, walk through walls, or run around with unlimited health for various reasons, usually to make the game easier.
As more and more of our game time is online, we have learned to interact more with people from all over the world who have widely varying levels of skill. Everyone encounters at some time or another another player who is so far “out of our league” that we claim that they are cheating without concrete evidence.
What can I do?
This concrete evidence, for the general user is very difficult to obtain, however it can be easier for the gaming platforms to do so. First and foremost, if you suspect that a user is cheating, report them to a GM with a description and a screenshot. This is sometimes easy when you’re dealing with a network of bots automatically clearing out an area of resources — you’ll see lots of similarly-named characters that look like they’ve been copy-pasted to hell and back. Sometimes, however, this is less difficult. Getting a screenshot of an opponent using an aimbot against you is nigh-impossible as the victim’s client won’t know.
For this reason, anti-cheating detections fall into one of three categories, though modern-day solutions vary as hybrids: client-side, server-side, and networking solutions.
Client-side solutions sit on the computer of each player. Epic Games’ Easy Anti-cheat (TM) and Valve’s BattlEye run alongside the game and counters signature cheating methods like auto-aiming or see-through walls. Client-side agents are very effective at finding programs running on the client computer, but can also take up valuable computing resources that can mean a lot in games where split-second reactions are key to success. Also there are privacy concerns (and another) about additional software running on the client’s computer that the customer might not understand.
Networking solutions look at network traffic between the client and game servers. These try to protect against software-based lag-switching, botnets, packet manipulation, and the like. They look at incoming connections to determine feasibility and logic against the context of the game. They also determine networking anomalies (like many multiple sessions from the same IP address) which can be helpful for a number of security reasons, not just for anti-cheating intent. These are, however, expensive to implement and require constant human monitoring.
Finally, server-side solutions are generally the most used as they are controlled by the game producer and they don’t involve any cost to the customer. They tend to be non-invasive and customizable by the game producer to ensure accuracy and accountability. i3d’s FairFight is a good example of this by using a rule engine “to evaluate players gameplay actions” against “multiple statistical markers to identify cheating as it occurs”. Most of the details of these are not disclosed to the public as this would make it easier to circumvent their efforts.
Now what?
In the end, online cheating is generally frowned upon and in some cases, straight-up illegal. Games offer players the opportunity to explore their own fantasies amid varying levels of difficulty to ensure maximum enjoyment. Cheating might be considered OK (and even encouraged) when playing single-player games, however the moment you gain unfair advantage over another player, you hurt their experience.
And let me tell you, the gaming community does *not* like that.
