[throwaway675309]

Just to play devil's advocate here what about somebody who has a superior DPI laser mouse versus somebody who has a standard rollerball mouse. What about people who use monitors with higher refresh rates like 144 Hertz, what about keyboards that have no ghosting and unlimited key rollover.

Do players who can afford these premium gaming and hardware devices have an unfair advantage?

Just to be clear I don't really have any skin in the game I don't play competitive multiplayer video games at all.

[staunch]

Cheating can be one of those "I know it when I see it" things that can require judgement from experts in difficult cases. Competitive chess players are the best ones to judge what constitutes cheating in chess, for example.

But what this startup is doing is the Wikipedia definition of cheating, with no reasonable room for debate:

Cheating in online games is the subversion of the rules or mechanics of online video games to gain an advantage over other players, generally with the use of third-party software.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating_in_online_games

And it seems pretty obvious that they know what they're doing is wrong. They just seem to be very determined to try to push forward, and seem to think they have cleverly concealed their bad behavior, hence the cover story bs about "coaching" when they clearly know what anyone would actually use their software for.

I'd guess that they also rationalize selling cheats because others do it, which is obviously no ethical defense at all.

YC probably needs to be the ones to set them straight, since they are in a position to do so, and have explicitly made it a goal to avoid funding unethical startups.

[NathanielK]

Amusingly, both those examples used to be common.

Old CRT monitors ran at up to 160-170Hz. Even at lower refresh rates motion was still clear. Key rollover really became a big issue with early USB keyboards and janky membrane setups. Many old keyboards didn't have the issue.

In my opinion, games are at least designed around the lowest common denominator. Very few twitch-shooters are popular now. Most shooters have other characters/classes that let players with disadvantageous equipment still join in on the fun. If everything is a blur playing "Scout" in TF2, you can play "Engineer" instead and let the automated turrets do the work for you.

I think there's a certain Director's Vision gaming setup. Ideally, everyone could play on a big screen, where everything is clear, not muddied by the physical realities of technology.

[meheleventyone]

That comparison is like comparing someone in average tennis shoes and a cheap racket with someone using pro-level gear. It’s generally accepted that the better stuff does give you an advantage but that it is within the rules of the game to be able to use it. Particularly as the advantage is generally pretty small and mostly open to people playing at higher levels anyway. Some sports do bracket people by the equipment they use.

Whereas most software cheats like these audio cues deliberate subvert the rules to give a significant advantage even to the clueless. And aids like aimbots even more so.

But fundamentally the rules of any one game and therefore what is considered to be cheating are pretty arbitrary. However there is a strong cultural component to the rule sets that will actually be appealing for people to play.