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Comment on Valve Addresses Steam Machine Anti-Cheat Concerns, Says It's Working Towards Support

Of course I’m serious. “Not 100% effective” is not the same as “not effective”. And to be clear, I hate it and do not endorse it. I will not buy any game that goes as far as to use that kind of anti-cheat. But developers use it because it’s more effective at catching cheaters than not using it. All downvoting me does is cover your ears to what’s actually going on. There are a number of big live service games that once enabled Proton and have now disabled it after cheaters took advantage of the more lax security. They would not cut off a portion of their customer base if they didn’t have to because user space in Linux was somehow just as effective as the Windows variant that lives at ring 0 in the OS kernel.

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Holytimes@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
In this instance not effective is 100% not effective.

Both kernel and non kernel anti cheat are equally effective in actual practice. In both cases your preventing kids, lazy and low knowledge users from cheating. But anyone who is willing to spend any amount of money to cheat can easily find someone who will provide them with a bypass.

In both cases the anti cheat is only as good as the on going support from the devs of both the anti cheat and the game.

You can’t control what a client does end of the day

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- ToxicWaste@lemmy.cafe ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  you are mostly right. anti cheat is somewhat more effective with kernel level access. also, it is infinitely more dangerous and creepy to run on your machine.
  
  however, if the devs can get rid of just a couple more cheaters - they will absolutely insist on the more intrusive versions. it is not their machine after all.
  
  i see two variants on how to solve this issue:
  
  let your wallet speak. this failed long ago IMO
  
  remind the devs, that a client is never to be trusted. if i had the time, i would probably make a sport out of breaking kernel level anti cheat and distribute it for free 😈
  
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- ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I wish you the best in convincing devs with the data in front of them that there’s no difference between the two, but they seem to have data that indicates that they see fewer cheaters with ring 0 anti-cheat than when they let Linux players in with user space anti-cheat. If it were true that there’s no difference, surely Valve’s engineers could convince them of that, too, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.
  
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Cethin@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The reason they do it usually is because some executives hear the Linux is less secure and that it’s only a small segment of users. It isn’t because it’s effective. The games that blocked Linux are almost all some of the games with the worst hackers. Guess what happened when they blocked Linux? Nothing. The number of hackers that were on Linux were near zero.

The issue is they cant be bothered to put the actual money/work to create a solution that’s effective. Instead they signal to their audience that they’re doing something by removing Linux, which doesn’t cost them anything and makes a show that they’re actually trying. It doesn’t fix the problems, but they get to make a show out of it.

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- ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Please cite sources for any of that. Game companies aren’t in the business of losing money. If they could make more money by supporting Linux customers, they would do so, and I’ve never heard of a gaming company’s executive ever mentioning anything about Linux except for Gabe Newell, openly or behind closed doors. If they wanted to make a big show of getting rid of cheaters, they’d never have enabled cross play between consoles and PC in the first place. They openly tell you why they don’t enable anti-cheat on Linux, in a way that’s beyond just being plausible, and you refuse to believe them. You’re only going to be surprised when this continues to happen even though the answer is right there.
  
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  - Cethin@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I have to cite sources but you don’t? One example is Rust, a notoriously hacker filled game.
    
    Of course they’re trying to make money. I literally explained that. The executives see Linux as not providing value, and it’s extra effort to support it. They’d rather instead use it as a symbol of how they’re actually trying really hard to fight hackers, but it’s a lie. It’s just a convenient excuse.
    
    You haven’t heard an executive say almost anything. They run companies. They don’t publish their every decision. They are the ones making the calls. They’re the ones responsible. They’re also largely technologically innept. They probably don’t even know what Linux is. They just know what they’ve been told.
    
    You’re only going to be surprised when this continues to happen even though the answer is right there.
    
    There are like two major companies doing this. There’s EA and Riot. There’s a tiny minority of minor players, like Rust. There’s also a lot of Chinese companies doing it. (China is infamous for having hackers, so yeah, didn’t solve that problem did it?)
    
    I can’t tell you the last time I booted up a western game and it didn’t work on Linux. (I think it was Squad44, which then added support, and support in the main Squad game has been in for a long time.) Everyone is moving toward supporting it, not away. The only places it’s an issue are large slow companies where the executives have too much control.
    
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    ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Your explanation is bordering on conspiracy theory, so yes. Rust cited why they cut support, as did Apex Legends, as did GTA Online. The rest often don’t even bother with supporting it in the first place because of how it always plays out. The existence of hackers at all doesn’t mean that Linux anti-cheat is equally effective, and you’d know that if you read the write up from the Rust team.
    
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