[km144]

> So I would rather share a match with the occasional cheater than run un-auditable ring-0 software on the same machine I use for anything private.

The article makes an argument that anti-cheat is not worth the trade-off, yet the author admits they are a non-gamer. Then they go on to present one example of anti-cheat that tells us all we need to know about actual gamers' preferences—FACEIT. For those who don't know, FACEIT is a third-party matchmaking service, primarily for CS2. People choose to go through the hoops of using third-party service that installs kernel-level anti-cheat on their computer because it helps to keep cheaters out of their games. This seems like pretty strong evidence that the author's argument is not a good representation of gamers' thoughts on this. I don't know what the actual solution is. I suspect if Valve made their own kernel-level anti-cheat people might trust it more, but it's still the same problem.

[avadodin]

Faceit has cheaters too by all accounts and some of the cheats have advanced to the point that not even kernel access under secure boot helps as they don't even run on the same device.

Behavioral patterns are a much better target.

If your cheats make you play like a legit player, who cares? It's the same as in the gym. People are bothered by people who look like Ahnold, and still can't lift one plate. Not the fattie who takes t to look like a normal person.

I think that's the spirit of VAC.

The only issue is it can't —or won't— detect people helicopter–hopping no–scope sniping around the map or terrible players who shoot you in the face every time in 12ms.

[literallyroy]

Saying FACEIT has cheaters “by all accounts” feels like a bad faith argument without including that it has significantly fewer cheaters (at least at higher ranks). As well as having the ability to report to real human moderators.

I have too many hours in cs:go and cs2 and am level 10 FACEIT. I have had many awful cheater experiences in the native competitive systems but have never had an obvious cheater (never reported someone) in a FACEIT match.

It works. It raises the bar high enough that cheating is significantly less frequent.

[____mr____]

> If your cheats make you play like a legit player, who cares?

Many people

[ultimafan]

Except cheating in games isn't the equivalent of steroids in the gym, since they let cheaters do things that literally no one can without them. And steroids at least have the argument behind them that you still have to put the work in (it's not "free" gains like cheats are, that guy that looks like Arnold is still putting hours into the gym every week to look like that, you can't just take steroids and look the same if you aren't willing to put in the effort)

A much better analogy would be showing up to a weightlifting competition with a construction crane and thinking competing with it against human lifters is fair.

[nomel]

I suspect the only technical alternative would be the extreme of "this is not your system at all" mode, and necessarily involve dedicated hardware, where you can boot your computer as a "game console". I also suspect this would mean that mode would necessarily be the "primary" mode [1], PS2 style.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2

[lenkite]

The only acceptable and correct trade-off for anti-cheat is fully remote gaming + locked-down console, where the Game companies own the software and servers and hardware and just rent you a "play slice" via their locked-down console. I suspect even then, they will want to install tools to monitor you to satisfy their "analytics"