Saturday, March 29, 2014

Cheaters never prosper

The videogame industry is huge, and people spend more money (and time) on games than on movies.  I'm an outlier, as I don't spend time on either, but the kids are typical young men and so are fairly immersed in the gaming world.

That much money attracts people who are willing to skirt the rules, and even pay money for an unfair advantage.  There must be more fame and fortune involved in gaming that I had thought, but cheating is a big enough problem that the gaming companies are coming up with creative ways to deal with it:
Respawn Entertainment thinks that cheaters deserve each other. The developer recently announced that it’s been collecting data since Titanfall launched, but that as of March 21, it has started enforcing bans using FairFight, which Battlefield 4 and other Electronic Arts games use as well. Interestingly, rather than just locking cheaters out of the game, Respawn is forcing them to play with other banned cheaters.

“You can play with other banned players in something that will resemble the Wimbledon of aimbot contests. Hopefully the aimbot cheat you paid for really is the best, or these all-cheater matches could be frustrating for you.” Respawn said on its website. “Good luck.”
Interesting approach.

5 comments:

  1. EVE Online is sort of like that, only it's the whole game. The only thing that'll get you banned is trying to hack the company's computers. Everything else is fair game. Scamming, cheating, piracy, even destroying game-controlled assets like space stations and police ships - it's all good. Penny Arcade calls it a "treachery engine." It's vicious. It's also hugely popular.

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