Players rave and rant about the wonders of kernel level anti cheats, and how games like Valorant barely have any cheaters compared VAC secured Counter Strike...
IMO, the issue is social, rather than a technical one. Competitive games, especially ones that can make people a lot of money through cosmetics, prizes, even just social capital (“high skill” players are the ones that dominate streaming platforms, after all) all provide a real, tangible benefit to the cost of cheating.
Consider the games where legitimate players suffer the most impact from cheating: MOBAs and competitive FPS. Consider games that have limited to no cheating problems: Indie games, single player experiences (duh), cooperative games.
One reason I’ve put 100s of hours into Deep Rock Galactic (ROCK AND STONE!) is because I can get the same multiplayer experience but without the stress or suspicion of competing with others. This might be obvious, but if you think about it the draw of many of these competitive games isn’t just the competitive aspect, but the cooperative aspect.
You could easily play 1v1 on many of these games (Rocket League, CSGO, Valorant all have popular 1v1 modes) but the largest playerbases always exist on the team side of these games: There’s a real draw to working cooperatively towards a common goal.
PvE and Co-op is a massively underlooked gaming paradigm that is thankfully coming into its own after the last few years. DRG, It Takes Two, CoD Zombies, Minecraft, Overcooked etc. all have incredibly dedicated communities and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
Couch/online Co-op totally counter the problems faced by competitive, player-vs-player toxicity and cheating. I know it sounds like a reach, but does it surprise you that gaming genres that emulate capitalism (competition and individualistic profit-seeking) are facing many of the same problems of capitalism (cheating against “legitimate” participants, toxic cultures of “the grind” and many others). Maybe competition, at least in a direct sense, can be a curse to your game from the beginning?
Fascinating video!
IMO, the issue is social, rather than a technical one. Competitive games, especially ones that can make people a lot of money through cosmetics, prizes, even just social capital (“high skill” players are the ones that dominate streaming platforms, after all) all provide a real, tangible benefit to the cost of cheating.
Consider the games where legitimate players suffer the most impact from cheating: MOBAs and competitive FPS. Consider games that have limited to no cheating problems: Indie games, single player experiences (duh), cooperative games.
One reason I’ve put 100s of hours into Deep Rock Galactic (ROCK AND STONE!) is because I can get the same multiplayer experience but without the stress or suspicion of competing with others. This might be obvious, but if you think about it the draw of many of these competitive games isn’t just the competitive aspect, but the cooperative aspect.
You could easily play 1v1 on many of these games (Rocket League, CSGO, Valorant all have popular 1v1 modes) but the largest playerbases always exist on the team side of these games: There’s a real draw to working cooperatively towards a common goal.
PvE and Co-op is a massively underlooked gaming paradigm that is thankfully coming into its own after the last few years. DRG, It Takes Two, CoD Zombies, Minecraft, Overcooked etc. all have incredibly dedicated communities and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
Couch/online Co-op totally counter the problems faced by competitive, player-vs-player toxicity and cheating. I know it sounds like a reach, but does it surprise you that gaming genres that emulate capitalism (competition and individualistic profit-seeking) are facing many of the same problems of capitalism (cheating against “legitimate” participants, toxic cultures of “the grind” and many others). Maybe competition, at least in a direct sense, can be a curse to your game from the beginning?