Most games I know about do both, but my understanding is it’s hard to stop some of the client-side stuff server-side.
Look, we’ve been here before. I’m not super invested in multiplayer stuff, so I don’t care that much, but I am old enough to remember when gamedevs would not even try crossplay and just let the PC be the wild west when it comes to cheating.
I didn’t necessarily hate it. I lived in a world of dedicated servers where moderation and security came down to some kid in his underpants being pretty sure he didn’t like you and kicking you out. I’m guessing there’s a bit too much money and too much of an expectation of free-form matchmaking for the mass market to go back to that.
But hey, I’m not a security software engineer and I’m not excessively involved in competitive shooters, which seems to be where most of the problem happens. My interest in this is having enough PC security for crossplay to make matchmaking in fighting games less of a hassle than it used to be in the Street Fighter 4 days. You sweaty FPS nerds can do whatever, as far as I’m concerned.
You’re right on all accounts, I oversimplified for humor. Server-side IS more expensive and does exist in limited ways. Rolling matches on dedi servers are highly profitable, unfortunately the old school days of matchmaking are over for everything except indie companies that want to replicate the nostalgia
Cheating could potentially also include console players. All consoles have been jailbroken and all it takes is sufficient interest to have someone make cheats that could be injected on top of the running game.
I thought the Xbox didn’t have a full jailbreak this gen yet, but maybe I’m wrong.
In any case, yeah, absolutely once consoles get jailbroken they become a vector of botting and cheating. Which is one reason why I have very mixed feelings about it. I welcome news of jailbreaking consoles because we do need it for preservation and emulation, which are important long term, but it is a bit of an issue for multiplayer, so sometimes it’s fine if it starts happening a few years in rather than right away. It matters less since crossplay is a thing and you get all the PC stuff anyway, but still.
On the grand scheme, though, cheating is a numbers game. It’s one thing to every now and then encounter some scammer or overly dedicated nerd and another to have an army of twelve year olds cheating trivially on every session you play.
Of course when it comes to Linux support the question is whether you can get Linux/SteamOS to the former state, or whether the volume of players is not enough to trigger the latter. I don’t know, frankly. Each game probably has a different balance and figures out that math for themselves based on it.
Game publishers: but server-side anticheat is
more expensiveHARDDDDDDMost games I know about do both, but my understanding is it’s hard to stop some of the client-side stuff server-side.
Look, we’ve been here before. I’m not super invested in multiplayer stuff, so I don’t care that much, but I am old enough to remember when gamedevs would not even try crossplay and just let the PC be the wild west when it comes to cheating.
I didn’t necessarily hate it. I lived in a world of dedicated servers where moderation and security came down to some kid in his underpants being pretty sure he didn’t like you and kicking you out. I’m guessing there’s a bit too much money and too much of an expectation of free-form matchmaking for the mass market to go back to that.
But hey, I’m not a security software engineer and I’m not excessively involved in competitive shooters, which seems to be where most of the problem happens. My interest in this is having enough PC security for crossplay to make matchmaking in fighting games less of a hassle than it used to be in the Street Fighter 4 days. You sweaty FPS nerds can do whatever, as far as I’m concerned.
You’re right on all accounts, I oversimplified for humor. Server-side IS more expensive and does exist in limited ways. Rolling matches on dedi servers are highly profitable, unfortunately the old school days of matchmaking are over for everything except indie companies that want to replicate the nostalgia
Cheating could potentially also include console players. All consoles have been jailbroken and all it takes is sufficient interest to have someone make cheats that could be injected on top of the running game.
I thought the Xbox didn’t have a full jailbreak this gen yet, but maybe I’m wrong.
In any case, yeah, absolutely once consoles get jailbroken they become a vector of botting and cheating. Which is one reason why I have very mixed feelings about it. I welcome news of jailbreaking consoles because we do need it for preservation and emulation, which are important long term, but it is a bit of an issue for multiplayer, so sometimes it’s fine if it starts happening a few years in rather than right away. It matters less since crossplay is a thing and you get all the PC stuff anyway, but still.
On the grand scheme, though, cheating is a numbers game. It’s one thing to every now and then encounter some scammer or overly dedicated nerd and another to have an army of twelve year olds cheating trivially on every session you play.
Of course when it comes to Linux support the question is whether you can get Linux/SteamOS to the former state, or whether the volume of players is not enough to trigger the latter. I don’t know, frankly. Each game probably has a different balance and figures out that math for themselves based on it.