Why is cheating in video games so hard to stop?

Money is power, they said. However, for years Valve Corporation and all its money was unable to do anything to a $20 program called LMAOBOX which ruined a lot of fun for Team Fortress 2 players. It has affected gameplay tremendously, and toss balance out of the window. Only recently, when some nice players passed the source code of the program to Valve, is the company able to counter this by incorporating the code to the Valve Anti-Cheat System. That was not an isolated incident, as the same problem has plagued the gaming industry for a while, yet companies are reluctant to talk about it.

However, recently Bohemia Interactive has shared some insights to the problem. The company’s lead producer, Eugen Harton, said that the openness gamers love of games is what makes it hard to detect cheaters. Most files required to run the game is on the players’ devices, and out of reach for developers. With that being the case, players can freely work with the game files to exploit bugs or flaws, automate process that usually require human inputs, and other offensive actions. Cheating in an open environment (customers’ PCs) is really hard to catch.

One solution is to run everything server side, but not many companies can afford to do so, since it requires a lot of money. For Bohemia Interactive, they rely mostly on honesty of players, and they have received notifications and flagging of incidents by players on their games like DayZ and Arma 3. Those 2 games have been affected heavily by cheating for a long time. However, those flaggings are most often false. So, the main solution relies upon the players, since it is up to them to not cheat and ruin the playing field for everyone.

Cheating: A never-ending battle

Cheating in old times is not that bad, mainly because it is a private issue. However, in this age, where e-sports and competitive gaming is the trend, cheating can be a real demise. We should try to play nice with each other, and stop cheating!