Well, no. Anti-cheat exists to keep cheaters from ruining the game. If I paid to enjoy a multiplayer game, and cheaters keep me from enjoying it, then anti-cheat is a requirement to enjoying the game I paid for. It's fine if you don't think it's worth the trade-off, but it does serve a real purpose to make gaming better for players.
They don't prevent cheating, they just make it harder. Cheat developers are still gonna bypass it, after all it is their business. And even if they did prevent cheating, it wouldn't be justifiable because the software is so invasive it can be classified as malware.
It's just like DRM. Like copying, cheating simply cannot be prevented if we are in control of the machine. This technological arms race can only end in one of two ways. Either the corporations manage to own our computers or they lose. Neither result is particularly great but I know which one I'm willing to accept.
> They don't prevent cheating, they just make it harder.
TBF; it's net the same thing. People just need it to be hard enough that it (generally) doesn't ruin your game.
You're making the same logical argument people have made against wearing (and then mandating) seat belts, and in more recent times vaccines. It's a sad slope that's led to me being told over Christmas dinner that murder being illegal is stupid because people still kill. He was serious. Boggles the mind.
Seat belts and vaccines are life saving items. They are approximately a trillion times more important than video games are and ever will be. They do not even belong in the same sentence.
Even those important life saving items have contraindications. They are well studied. We know their benefits. We know their risks. We know how to balance the two. Professionals do it every day. Most people voluntarily choose to use these items after the facts are explained. Forgoing their use doesn't stop your life either.
We know virtually nothing about anticheat systems. Their benefits, if any, are likely exaggerated to increase profits. Their costs and risks are "explained" in some annoying legalese document that pretty much nobody reads. You're forced to accept this nonsense. You can't play the game otherwise, might as well click next.
Their function is to take over your computer in order to control and limit what you can do with it. That's an affront to the user. Accepting this costs users part of their dignity. We can only hope that they will have lots of fun with their game afterwards. Otherwise their sacrifice will have been for nothing.
> That's an affront to the user. Accepting this costs users part of their dignity
I honestly love this. I want to hang out at a bar and get sloshed with you; maybe after hours at a conference. I legitimately think we'd be best buds.
As an aside though - 95% of PC users generally just don't care as long as ItWorks and its fun. It's easy to get mired in the minutia of the systems (technical and societal) instead of thinking about how it interacts with the average person.
Yeah man. I get it. But not everyone feels like you do. It's still the case that anti-cheat makes multiplayer games better for those who want to play them. It is an effective technology, otherwise they wouldn't use it. It's not like the game studios enjoy paying those licensing fees.
