Anti-cheat makes a lot of sense in certain cases. Multiplayer, for instance, and even online coop. The moment you’re able to influence someone else’s experience, anti-cheat makes sense.
Though I’d argue it should be optional for “private” experiences, like private servers.
The problem is that basically any anti-cheat that isn’t server side and is installed locally on the machine is in one way or another a rootkit (especially the ring 0 ones), and because their purpose is obfuscation they often do more than they say they do and their operators have no accountability, we can’t, and shouldn’t trust them.
Server side ones make sense and I don’t have any issues with those, as those can’t affect the host machine (except due to vulnerabilities).
Though I’d argue it should be optional for “private” experiences, like private servers.
I’m a big proponent for decentralized online play where the servers aren’t based on the company which has a desire to make money off you (the whole reason they’re trying to put rootkits in people’s computers). Especially after all the shit around online games terminating their services and becoming unplayable, for games with decentralized online play and matchtaking services this basically wouldn’t happen, sure a game could become unpopular but even if there were no servers for a game like that, one could still start up a server for their friends to play on together, these games never really die.
Anti-cheat makes a lot of sense in certain cases. Multiplayer, for instance, and even online coop. The moment you’re able to influence someone else’s experience, anti-cheat makes sense.
Though I’d argue it should be optional for “private” experiences, like private servers.
The problem is that basically any anti-cheat that isn’t server side and is installed locally on the machine is in one way or another a rootkit (especially the ring 0 ones), and because their purpose is obfuscation they often do more than they say they do and their operators have no accountability, we can’t, and shouldn’t trust them. Server side ones make sense and I don’t have any issues with those, as those can’t affect the host machine (except due to vulnerabilities).
I’m a big proponent for decentralized online play where the servers aren’t based on the company which has a desire to make money off you (the whole reason they’re trying to put rootkits in people’s computers). Especially after all the shit around online games terminating their services and becoming unplayable, for games with decentralized online play and matchtaking services this basically wouldn’t happen, sure a game could become unpopular but even if there were no servers for a game like that, one could still start up a server for their friends to play on together, these games never really die.