With the rise of mainstream-compatible, as in a standard gamer can get them running and use them with a similar frustration level as Win11, Linux first systems like steam deck, steam machine and even steam frame, there is a real, even if currently low, pressure for big publisher to support Linux/SteamOS. I somewhat hope/fear there will be a blessed SteamOS version that supports anticheats enough for publishers like EA, Epic and Riot to accept the risk.
1: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2024/09/12/takin...
Valve (mostly) does serverside analytics for CS2 and the success of their approach can be measured by one of FaceIT’s benefits being “we have a working anticheat”.
On a sidenote, I highly recommend this presentation on anticheat stuff: https://game-research.github.io/presentations/2025-08-06-bhu...
This. It should actually be easier to catch offenders - you're leaning on hundreds of years of applied statistics, rather than racing versus sneakier exploits.
> [...] or better yet, servers should be community-operated.
I'm conflicted about this one. I've wanted to host a game server at home since 2003, but couldn't get a public, static IP. The landscape hasn't changed much, perhaps even for the worse: a Quake 3 dedicated server could be run from a mid-range laptop while playing the game; Minecraft and Factorio (both great games with fantastic communities), by that measure, have unreasonable hardware requirements.
So, you pay a host.
OTOH there's many ways for a studio to build and operate an ethical live service. Check out Warframe: it's 100% F2P, the main source of revenue is cosmetics, and it's easy for people to gift stuff (whales spill their pockets reinforcing community goodwill, rather than gambling).
It's best when a game offers both, e.g. Brood War. StarCraft II isn't "simply" dying; lack of LAN play actively hinders on-site, professional tournaments. And we can do nothing about it.
> [...] see how good they are vs. everyone else [...]
It's called Elo or MMR. You match players with a similar rating. An unfair advantage in one area (e.g. aimbot, map hack) turns into a significant disadvantage in all of the other areas (strategy, team play, mechanics, situational awareness, decision making). In SC2 you can regularly see mid-high masters or low GMs play against map hackers and just destroy them. Match making simply works as intended.
As a cheater - aside from being a different (not more difficult, but different) kind of a challenger, how do you gain material advantage from this? Streaming the game? If you attract a community that cherishes cheaters? Well.
This is of course on top of normal AC.
> [...] how do you know if someone is cheating or just really good?
In versus - it will surface, as noted above. You will plateau, just like any other player. If you're "really good", you will become an outlier and get attention.
In a game like Warframe (PvE, you can farm goods that you can sell for in-game currency), the main limiting factor is your time. A very good loadout will shorten an exterminate mission from 4 to 3 minutes, and you can build a decent loadout within ~2 months of starting to play the game. To further shorten it to 2min, you need good mechanics, or - as noted - to cheat. That's assuming you run solo - but since this is a co-op game, there's often someone on your team who will clear the mission for you in 2min anyway. Choosing to cheat is your own risk.
I'd consider AC a core part of game design.
> Most cheaters are not blatantly cheating so it is hard to know for sure. Even something like aimbotting is almost always adjustable in cheat software to have varying levels of accuracy.
It depends on how high you want to go - you don't know where the radar is, and it only needs to spot you once. The problem space isn't just aimbotting, it's highly multidimensional. An arms race like any other, except your "enemy" (the host) has significantly more information.
You must combine client-side with server-side AC either way. A CS exploit will circulate the same way a regular aimbot will.
I should have clarified - this is exactly what I meant. Client-side anti-cheat cannot be replaced by server-side anti-cheat. You need both.
I work on an FPS game that is heavily targeted by cheaters (Rust). We do both but we are probably limited with what we can do server-sided because it's a PvP sandbox game. There is no matchmaking and no defined winner or loser to simplify ranking players against each other. It's also high stakes because a cheater can ruin a legit player's hours of preparation in moments. Drawing a line in the data to detect cheaters will catch outliers but there's a world of "legit cheaters" out there who use cheats but limit it to not stand out and avoid being banned.
- Why no matchmaking, why no win/loss condition? What's the incentive structure / stakes for the participants? Is that a differentiator in the genre?
- Other than raw mechanics (aiming), what other kinds of skillsets affect gameplay / success?
- What are you allowed to share about the mitigations?
I don't wanna try any further backseating, just curious.
Other than aiming there's just game and map awareness, including understanding the current meta. Base design is a whole other area relevant to defending against raiding while you aren't online or away from your base.
We use EAC but also have our own layers of protection. We do some of our own anti-tampering in the client, a player reporting system with staff to investigate, server-side antihack to guard against all kinds of weird state modified clients send, and a lot of data collection+analysis. If you look up Rust or any other popular FPS game up you'll see it's still not enough.
The most effective anticheat tool really is game design. Games can be designed to limit or even eliminate the worst of cheating... but only by significantly changing the games. It'd be simple if everything was like the Civilization games because they're turn based and have well-defined actions. All input can be 100% verified without the need for tolerances and hidden state (fog of war) can be networked only when necessary.
> The most effective anticheat tool really is game design.
Yep, that's always been my idea, and why I brought up Elo.
IMO second most effective is to play with people you already trust. Or like on many public Factorio servers: strangers get limited permissions until proven trustworthy. But none of this works in a game with just a couple hundred players.
Thanks for sharing.
But I would like to think that Valve it indirectly putting pressure on them. I too am not far from removing Windows and making the full jump to Linux for my gaming needs.