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Valve Gets Tough On Counter-Strike Cheaters
Tycow writes "Valve is finally getting tough on Counter-Strike cheat creators, according to a post by Gabe Newell on HL2-Fallout, who confirms: 'We've started taking legal action against cheating (cheat-sites, cheat creators,...) both in the US and abroad.' The makers of OGC, one of the mainstream cheat software sites for online games, are apparently seeking legal advice. CS-Nation also has a story noting: 'This is just another front in Valve's anti-cheating campaign. Back in April, Valve began a significantly more aggressive banning methodology, that came as a byproduct of a rapid series of VAC updates silently distributed to all CS servers.'"
Perhaps, instead of relying on yet-more-lawyers and yet-more-lawsuits, Valve should try to fix the FUCKING BUGS FIRST.
The vast majority of exploits and cheats are based on bugs. Fix the bug, you fix the problem.
Quit blaming other people for your own problems Valve.
What exactly gives them the right to shut down a website that distributes software that they don't like?
While I hate cheating, I don't know how they have the legal right to do this.
I take issue with these actions for the same reason that P2P shouldn't be outlawed. What if you are using/allowing cheats on private servers? (Note: I didn't see in the article whether or not the cheats work on private servers or if they are explicitly written for Valve's servers.) In other words, there are legitimate reasons for the cheats. If Valve wants to ban CD keys of users who are using the cheats, that's really their own business. But trying to get the cheats removed is rather unacceptable.
Exactly. We all hate cheaters, but mucking around in the legal system isn't exactly the best solution here.
Is distributing a cheat a violation of the (US and/or international) law? Nope.
The people who run the cheat website's haven't necessarily violated the EULA either.
The US and International governments are busy dealing with millions of starving people, wars, trade agreements. Your "cheat" isn't even a blip on anyone's radar...
When I was playing PC multiplayer games on a regular basis, there were always games with cheaters in them. They (usually the cheater, otherwise the game) were easy to figure out. The solution? Switch to a different server. It ain't rocket science. The idea of suing someone for ruining an online game (specifically, a non-persistent online game with beaucoup other servers available) is ludicrous. The idea of a company suing people who make and distribute cheats - assuming they aren't breaking copyright law - is ludicrous.
There's an easy way to remain free of cheaters in online games. Make friends and then play with them. Not only will you be reasonably certain there's no cheating going on, but you'll probably enjoy the experience more regardless.
I mean, hell, if we're going to talk about lawsuits for ruining people's fun then why not go after spawn campers, consta-jumpers, loot whores, etc., too? How about suing people who are frustrated but remain in the game and on a team doing badly on purpose?
If you're taking online games that seriously, though, I would recommend first that you quit playing online games and stick with single-player - clearly, you don't have thick enough skin to deal with other humans. Either that, or start a service - or find a way to encourage companies to start a service - with pay servers. If people are so invested in these games it's worth tying up court time, then it should be worth $10 a month to have a bank of exclusive servers not open to the general public. I would guess you'd weed out 90% of the cheaters with that one stroke since they'd probably keep cheating on free systems.
PS- The next time you find a clause guaranteeing "freedom to be entertained" in a government's constitution, let me know so that I can snicker. Aren't there enough SERIOUS and IMPORTANT issues of freedom to deal with?
PPS- The type of person who would make your suggestions would be the type of person with whom I would want to play and punish with cheating - I'm just that kind of bastard.
Well - let us hear exaclty HOW you would implement an anti-cheat system that exists on a client compueter you basicly cannot trust?
My guess is that you are not a developer...
I feel the need to add to this discussion, as the opening post is both misleading and untrue. I have not played CS for some time, but I currently run/admin an SoF2 server which is very similar exceot that the engine is two generations newer. From my experience with both games, they are very similar in the issue of cheating.
As an admin, I run into all kinds of cheating. Wallhacks, ballhacks, and aimbots are some of the worst and most widely known, although there are a number of other types that exist. However, just looking at these three most prevalent types, none of them rely on any kind of bug in the game to operate. The majority of cheats operate by writing hooks into the OpenGL data that allows them to obtain additional information about the game and then display that to the screen. That is how wallhacks are able to show players that would normally be occluded and ballhacks are able to display balls (or any kind of symbol) over all player's head no matter where they are in the level.
These specific types of cheats are just hooks, however. They do not rely on any kind of bug/issue/hole in the game as they are utilizing information that is contained within the OpenGL subsystem on the client machine. In SoF2 there are a couple of exploits that are based on bugs in the game, but these are widely known and fall into a "gray area" as they do not *really* give a player an advantage, but might in some particular instances. From an admin standpoint, there are tools (namely PunkBuster) that allow for easy observation of these types of exploits, and these same tools are available for pretty much all mainstream online FPS games.
The solution to cheating goes far beyond merely insulting the developers and claiming that all the responsibility is on them to fix these nebulous "bugs" in their software. This is an extremely difficult problem to surmount in every facet of the issue. While I may not completely agree with Valve's approach to the issue, I applaud them for actually standing up and taking some sort of action. IMO, cheating is one of the largest deterrents to online gaming today.