Quoting: RCLThis is indeed an open area of research and work. However, as far as I am aware - and I'm not an anti-cheat specialist - there isn't enough robustness as of now yet, to avoid false positives or missing the cheaters, and more importantly, the current solutions have a fairly long lead time, which cheaters can beat by recycling the accounts faster (in a free-to-play game at least). So while a promising area, this is far from a solution that can be enabled "right here, right now" to combat today's cheaters, unfortunately.

I don't see it as an excuse to resort to unacceptable solutions. Rather it should be an incentive to invest more into such AI.

Also, the way this works is a slippery slope. Once these companies manage to portray this as "acceptable" and people start ignoring the issue, it becomes very hard to get rid of it even if there are better solutions. Because they don't want to give up power and control.

Same thing with other areas with similar issues.

I recommend reading the above Watchbird, it's very on point.

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Quoting: RCLYou seem to maintain that there's the "proper" solution that avoids both of those downsides and yet doesn't limit the user's freedom.

There is. Develop an AI that will analyze user behavior while running server side and will detect patterns that will be deemed as "illegal" by the game. Same as police would monitor people's behavior in the street, but wouldn't sit in people's homes because they "need to suspect everyone to maintain the level of trust".

How you define those patterns is totally up to developers. The more sophisticated ways they'll come up with and the more they train it, the better the AI will be detecting what they define as "cheating". I don't see any unsolvable problem there.

It's not a perfect solution, but it can be a sufficient solution for the level of trust you need. Same as policing in real life is. Point is - there is no perfect solution for it. But there can be good enough ones.

Basically, I don't see any huge philosophical problem here, it's the same old privacy vs policing idea that's been handled for a long time in some acceptable fashions that don't cross important boundaries.

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Quoting: RCLThis is a rather bold statement to make, without having the data or likely even an idea about the health of the game.

It is bold and based on a simple idea - messing up user's privacy and security becasue developers don't want to spend effort on proper solutions is unacceptable.

Quoting: RCLwhich poses a fundamental and philosophical issue - how to prevent bad behavior on a platform that trusts their users completely? People who are smarter than me are working on this and don't have a good (or economical at least) solution so far.

Simple - you don't (do it on people's systems). Same as you don't put police cameras in people's homes (wouldn't it help preventing more crime?). Same reason there is the Fourth Amendment and such.

No matter how "serious" this problem is, current idea of preemptive user side anti-cheat is not a solution. Not any more than let's say the Watchbird is a solution to crime.

For those who want to better get the reference, see:

* https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29579 [External Link]
* https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29579/29579-h/29579-h.htm [External Link]

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Quoting: RCLBut it is more reactive than preventive.

No one said you need to have a preventive anti-cheat. Or to put it differently, the elephant in the room is that you don't need it to make the game good enough. But good reactive anti-cheat is a hard and expensive problem to solve. Not impossible.

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Quoting: Cyba.CowboyCouldn't they just implement anti-cheat software on the server instead?

Correct me if I am wrong, but I would imagine that this would be easier to maintain and it would be far more difficult for potential cheaters to bypass...

They could. But it's equivalent to investing into sophisticated enough AI. They don't want to spend on it. It's cheaper to push spyware junk on the user.

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Pretty cool trailer. I hope they'll make GOG release too.

This also reminds me to check how Everspace 2 progress is going.

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Quoting: GuestBuy from Valve, support Valve! They are the ones that deserve our support!

Off-topic and flamebait I'd say.

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Couldn't Wine use ffmpeg for that? It could handle WMA and WMV for a long time already.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyDid I say something about feeling bad for them?
I want lots of Steam Deck sales.

I don't think sales at the cost of perpetuating poor security is a good idea. That's my take on it at least. Those who sell stuff that causes damage becasue there is demand are doing a very questionable thing.

If information security sounds too abstract, you can use some more tangible example. Let's take transport. Imagine someone will say it's good to sell more but risky vehicles, because someone hyped that it's "cool" and clueless masses want that.

I'd argue those who sell that will bear responsibility for the harm that will cause.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'm unhappy they will have to have, because it makes the Steam Deck less attractive to them. And if any of those people cared about the arguments people here are making about the dangers of kernel level access for foreign software, they wouldn't be playing Fortnite in the first place.

I don't think it's a reason to feel bad for them. I don't.

Imagine something is harmful and clueless crowds don't mind it becasue they are clueless enough about it. And then something actually does come out with security in mind and these crowds don't like it. I think it's good to have alternatives that do the right thing rather then use "cater to the clueless crowd" approach every time.

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