Cheating in gaming has been here for a while, and it’s a trend that costs the gaming industry a lot of revenue. Videogame companies are now keen on keeping cheating at bay not only because of the revenue losses, but it also compromises fair play.
Among the developers that are dedicated to curbing cheating is PUBG Corp and Blizzard Entertainment, two of the most successful videogame developers.
A few days ago, Blizzard Entertainment, Overwatch’s developer announced that it is testing an anti-cheat system that automatically shuts down matches upon the detection of cheats and hacks. Aimbots and wallhacks have been the order of the day, and this is killing the game. On the other hand, PUBG Corp released a video which showcased the PUBG Anti-Cheat mechanism, which takes an aggressive approach to any signals of cheating.
Dohyung Lee, head of PUBG’s Anti-Cheat Unit and Wonha Ryu, Anti-Cheat operations manager, explained the new mechanism in a video released on their official YouTube page. “Cheat developers will always evolve their techniques to try to get around ours,” said Dongwan Kim, one of the anti-cheat engineers. “So we recently created a very sophisticated technical response that makes it more difficult for offenders to develop illegal programs, such as encryption of pointer and memory, virtualization of codes, section shuffles, and more.”
According to the video, the team uses a range of techniques to identify and prevent the future possibility of cheat development. Among the tools, the system uses include player and match reports. And there are tough measures for players found to be cheating. Right now, it’s not just about the ban, but the company is also in partnership with international law enforcement organizations. Those creating, distributing, and using illegal software now risk arrest.
As for Blizzard, the new Overwatch Anti-Cheat system will automatically shut down the match in case there is an indication of cheating. The punishment is also severe here and includes loss of Skill Rating and even bans. But for the genuine players, there’s no cause for alarm as the punitive measures target only the players who use cheats and hacks. So, even if a match is ended based on cheating, only the culprits face the consequences whether they were in your team or the opponents.
In the Overwatch July update, lead designer Jeff Kaplan affirms that the new system is under testing on the PTR (Public Test Realm) servers, but several Reddit users claim to have experienced it in the live game servers. This might be true, and the surest way to catch cheaters off guard.
Blizzard Entertainment and PUBG Corp could be on the verge of stumping out cheating once and for all. But all that depends on whether the test results on the new systems will be positive.
