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Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

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Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#551

Post by tightbookkeeper »

nathants wrote: post #236

kernel level anticheat is not enough. client inputs have to be trusted, and there is no provenance. the kernel has no visibility of inputs. i’m shipping a 100 player matchmaking game now. clients tick at 360hz, server ticks at 120hz. fair up to 60 ping, which covers entire continents. servers are metal, not vms. epyc 4244p with 2Gbps egress, 1 server per 15 minute game. mitigations=off and nosmt on all clients and th…

Cheating is a human problem. The technology just makes us feel in control.

I will not be playing games that make me feel like a prisoner. The experience taking standardized tests is enough for one life.

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#552

Post by xelamonster »

_factor wrote: post #497
parl_match wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is what happens when a producer's/product manager's cherished KPIs come before UX. > In their mind, adding a toggle in the launcher would lead to lower engagement and player acquisition. Not "in their mind". It does and they have the data to show it. Very frustrating situation.

Government regulation of toxic waste dumping negatively impacts profit margins. We have the data to prove this, very frustrating situation.

But that's why the government had to regulate it. If companies have financial incentive to do something they're going to do it, to make them stop that incentive must be removed. I don't think that comment was intending to justify the situation.

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#553

Post by nemomarx »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #492
yreg wrote: post #195

I've just reinstalled GTA V last week and I was very surprised to find out that I now have to install a rootkit to run it. They had the balls to add a mandatory kernel extension into a game that I've bought 10 years ago and that I wish to play in single player only. I find it utterly ridiculous. As usual, piracy would have been the superior experience.

Honest question. Would a Windows10-11 user be able to tell there are "rootkits" embedded in installations, without looking at the (optional) disclosures made available now on steam ? In other words, what guarantee is there that if i'm buying a game from Steam, or say GOG, that there's no quasi-malware riding along with the game install ?

in general anti cheat will advertise that it has kernel level access and might need admin permission during install

if you're worried about hidden stuff I'm not sure how you could tell

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#554

Post by jokoon »

nathants wrote: post #236

kernel level anticheat is not enough. client inputs have to be trusted, and there is no provenance. the kernel has no visibility of inputs. i’m shipping a 100 player matchmaking game now. clients tick at 360hz, server ticks at 120hz. fair up to 60 ping, which covers entire continents. servers are metal, not vms. epyc 4244p with 2Gbps egress, 1 server per 15 minute game. mitigations=off and nosmt on all clients and th…

Valve now catches cheaters using machine learning, which analyzes the demo. Apparently they catch a lot of cheaters this way, and it's more reliable than player reports.

But to be really honest: it's impossible to prevent cheaters. The only way is to play with friends, or to change the incentives of the game where it becomes less interesting to cheat.

For example, a game like counter strike will have a lot of cheaters because you can earn skins and sell them. There are also a lot of players who will buy cheats, because the game is just so popular.

The game design and engine design can also help to prevent cheating.

Honestly, you cannot solve corruption, you need to change the game or the players.

In my view, the Counter strike community is quite toxic, but very profitable for valve, which is why they don't care if their players behave poorly. CS is a nice game but human nature is what it is. You don't find recommendable people playing CS, most gamers play something else because that community is just so terrible to interact with.

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#555

Post by montagg »

wrren wrote: post #491
ho_schi wrote: post #404

First step. Second step? Ban games with kernel-level anti-cheat. It is not acceptable on Linux. Apple will also not accept that shit further, that said Apple lost relevance in gaming with Mantle and the M-Processors (both mean a lot of incompatibility). And Microsoft is regretting every choice in this regard: https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/12/24242947/microsoft-window... But that is a usual pattern. Microsoft makes…

That's an incredibly naive perspective. KLA represents a real risk to companies, as something going wrong can crash player computers instead of just game processes; this is a PR nightmare if/when it happens on a large scale. Not to mention the cost of hiring engineers capable of building kernel components in the first place, it's a niche skillset that's not cheap to hire for. Games companies don't turn to KLA out of…

> The alternative was conceding the space to cheaters and watching games that players love, and that required massive resources to develop and maintain, degenerate into a hellscape of cheating that real players refuse to play.

This was a key reason for Valorant's success. Anti-cheat is a necessary evil to make online games fair. I think if someone wants to suggest otherwise, they would need to demonstrate a superior solution. Companies truly do not want to be in the business of messing with your kernel, so if another solution exists—one that is actually superior in cheat detection and prevention—without a kernel extension, they'll do it.

I'll provide another example of why companies would rather not do it unless they have to. Kernel extensions usually require a system restart. Requiring a restart adds a huge drop off point to a conversion funnel and costs the game some amount of players who may have stuck around, and some players, like the ones here who are upset about it, won't even bother because they are outright opposed. Games would gobble up a solution that worked and didn't have that baggage.

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#556

Post by tightbookkeeper »

janderland wrote: post #283
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #116

I think the population of game developers and their knowledge of multiplayer networking is fundamentally getting worse over time, because I see things that should not be architecturally possible in a lot of newer multiplayer games. This whole thing anti-cheat thing is just a separate problem entirely, but it's so painfully exacerbated by the first.

Strange take. These things are being put forward by major companies who hire very good engineers. Riot Games makes the most popular game in the entire world (League of Legends) and they use kernel-level anti-cheating. I interviewed with them and found their test to be one of the more difficult ones I’ve taken. I’m not under the impression they lack the necessary knowledge.

Poor networking -> need for anti-cheat

Does not mean:

Using anti-cheat -> poor networking

Ops comment is absolutely true. Engineers in games who are good have high incentive to 5x their salary and lifestyle by doing anything else.

This was not true in 1997. The industry also just attracts a different crowd, more adjacent to film and entertainment than it used to.

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#557

Post by LinXitoW »

Aeolun wrote: post #371
steelframe wrote: post #278

I built a separate Arch Linux box just for Steam gaming. I will never log into any of my sensitive accounts -- email, banking, etc. -- on that machine. It's a Framework laptop so I can physically keep the camera and microphone disconnected. I basically treat it like a public terminal.

Do you truly expect any steam games to have anything like a root kit that’d exfiltrate your credentials? I feel if this were the case literally anything I install on my PC would be suspect. Installing ssh would be a much more scary thing than a random steam game.

I don't expect that. I expect that publicly traded companies will cut corners in developing their kernel extension (like always), turning them into literal root kits waiting for anyone willing to exploit them.

See: https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/22/h/ransomware-ac...

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#558

Post by porkbrain »

amiga386 wrote: post #494
BoorishBears wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only the answer if the goal is to not feel like you're being cheated by cheaters: realistically cheating would be absolutely fucking bonkers if you actually tried to treat DIY matchmaking as a form anti-cheat. Voting to kick/ban and sharing ban lists only works for ragehacking, but the most joy stealing form of cheating is people using hacks and cheats subtly enough to beat an average player, but not strongly en…

I don't think anyone is saying "DIY matchmaking", they're saying "community servers" - and everyone in any given community knows everyone else, ideally IRL, and any newcomers are going to be watched, both for their technical performance but also their social performance. Cheating among your friends has the ultimate death penalty of losing those friendships. Most people don't want that. This is why most cheating is no…

Equating cheaters to energy vampires is great comedy, I'm stealing that.

I'd love to see Colin Robinson play CS 1.6 with wallhack in his basement.

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#559

Post by bunderbunder »

So, I'm not really into online multiplayer, but from a distance I keep wondering if this could be more easily mitigated by altering the incentive structure?

What if online games track how well people do and sort them into tiers based on skill level? And then put people who are roughly evenly matched together. I am guessing that cheaters will naturally end up clumping together with each other, and maybe a smattering of elite players who are good enough that they can hold their own, and maybe even benefit from the added challenge. And also, casual and less-skilled players can play together and not get dominated so much.

I don't think it would end cheating. But perhaps it would mitigate it by reducing a lot of the potential upside. Assuming the upside for many cheaters is that they enjoy feeling like they can dominate a server full of non-cheaters.

Re: Steam games will need to disclose kernel-level anti-cheat on store pages

#560

Post by LinXitoW »

skizm wrote: post #266
fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #171

I hate to say this but a large percentage (in fact, I believe a majority) of gamers simply do not care about invasive anti-cheats. Right now CounterStrike players are mostly begging Valve for kernel-level anti-cheat since their current solution isn't working at all. If anything, this warning will actually make many player's more impressed with the game. That said, more consumer information is almost always better in…

As a counter strike player, I definitely shy away from the invasive anti cheat stuff… but I’d let valve inject it into my veins if it meant I could actually play and not suspect everyone of cheating all the time. Mostly because Valve has earned my trust. I won’t install games from other companies using similarly invasive techniques though.

But you couldn't. After all, there's a lot of hardware based cheats that even KLA can't reliably detect.

If you're "not sure if someones cheating or just good", maybe that's a mental problem with you? Put differently, if all cheaters were perfectly hidden (aka looked exactly like a real player of that skill level), would you still care? If yes, you seem more interested in a morality than actually enjoying the game.

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