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Comment by grawprog | Hacker News Reader

>kernel drivers are a necessary evil.

No they're not. Not for cheating in a video game. The reason why cheat makers have advanced to shady rootkit level exploits is because game publishers started doing it first. Stopping cheating in your games is not more important than the security of my computer period. I don't care. Find better ways to manage your game or i'll play something else. I have no interest in your anti-cheat spyware being on my computer.

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I would disagree with your reason cheats went kernel, speaking as someone wrote cheats for over 10 years before “switching sides”. It’s because cheat software always wants to hide from the anti-cheat, and kernel mode provides a perfect place to do that.

But if you don’t want to have anti-cheat software installed, that’s OK! I’m a big proponent of informed-consent, and if you don’t consent, nobody is forcing you to. You just won’t be able to enjoy online multiplayer.

> I’m a big proponent of implied-consent

There is no such thing as implied consent. There is either explicit consent, or there is an absence of consent.

I meant to say “informed-consent”. I’ve edited the post.

It’s too bad that the game industry has this all or nothing attitude. If you can’t make a video game without installing kernel drivers and spying on everything my computer is doing, then I guess I’m free to just not buy your games anymore. To me, thwarting CheatMan69 is less important than access to everything on my PC. I don’t think the majority of customers are informed about the risks of these anti-cheat systems, and suspect more would opt-out if they were.

I honestly wish OS companies would grow a pair and start classifying these systems as malware and removing them.

I take it you're not a gamer. Pretty sure very few would opt-out even if they knew exactly what was happening as long as it prevented cheaters.

If OS companies did that then competitive online multiplayer would effectively be dead. That may be fine to you but it's a very selfish opinion considering it would completely destroy the hobby of hundreds of millions of gamers.

>You just won’t be able to enjoy online multiplayer

No, i'll be able to enjoy online multiplayer in one of the many, many games whose devs don't feel like they need to monitor and control my computer to provide a quality game.

It's a naive viewpoint. Prime example: Counter strike. Even with VAC(valve anti cheat) measures, the game is full of cheaters. Those aren't super intrusive, and the game simply isn't fun for anybody who cares at all about competitive gameplay. So people move onto other platforms that support more intrusive anticheats. I'm not really sure what the solution is, but given your stance, that would just mean every FPS game will be rendered borderline unplayable because of all of the cheaters on it. And I mean, if that's your point--to just not play competitive FPS games, then I'm not really sure what we're even arguing here.

Right. The vast majority of players moved to the platforms with the most intrusive anti-cheat of all years ago: games consoles.

The market spoke. A few geeks with hangups about kernel drivers are irrelevant next to the masses of people who will happily buy entire dedicated gaming computers designed from the ground up to be physically tamperproof.

The PC contains my valuable data and is needed for important non-game uses. With the PC, reliability and security for those other tasks must not be compromised for a mere game.

Game consoles are toys. Even if the game screwed up the game console, it wouldn't be very intrusive.

I should have been more explicit, but by other platforms, I meant ESEA/Faceit that provide their own anti cheat systems that run independently of VAC. I'm not sure I'm really seeing many people go to ps4/xbox simply because of some cheaters on PC?

Well, most gamers went to consoles over time and there was certainly a thriving cheating scene there, that the console makers (at least Microsoft) were able to push back and destroy. Multi-player is pretty popular everywhere so it's probably a factor, though I'm not enough of a gamer to care. My skillz are so weak it feels like everyone is cheating all the time :)

Sure! That's a perfectly reasonable strategy, and one that I pursue as well. But competitive FPS games really do need to monitor and control your computer to stop ubiquitous aimbotting, so I don't begrudge those devs for doing it.

then don't play, what's the problem

cheating is very serious problem and there are no easy solutions

teams of skilled developers have been challenging it over decades and this is how it evolved

The game I like to play, Destiny 2, suffers from a lot of cheaters. Players don't complain about too much anti-cheat: they complain about too little, and urge Bungie to adopt stricter controls. Many wouldn't even think twice about the game requiring a kernel extension. Majority would probably even celebrate the move if it was effective at eliminating cheaters.

So the flip-side of this feeling seems to be just as common.

You're free to play something else; don't complain when you're getting roasted by rampant cheaters though.

Even that is arguable. Competitive multiplayer games without competent anti-cheating measurements are unplayable in that the only winning move is not to play. Is there any value in being free to play what is unplayable? I suppose "something else" could include playing with yourself but then none of this even applies.

Yea thats great, punlishers wont care because the vast majority of people dying to get a beta of valorant wont give two shits about installing kernel drivers.

Just because it's not more important to you doesn't mean it's not more important to others. There are games that have contests with multi-million dollar prize pools, some people would find a good anti cheat very important.

> Find better ways to manage your game or i'll play something else.

Pretty sure game companies don't care about the small minority who cares or even understands the implications of this.

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