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Player vs. Player Play Examined
aws910 writes "An interesting story at news.com.com tells of the various efforts employed by various MMOG companies to abate the problem of Griefers." From the article: "Social miscreants can do more than ruin the game for better-behaved competitors. They can hurt game companies' bottom line by driving away customers and burning up support lines. Problems related to grief players often account for 25 percent or more of customer service calls, according to game publishers." Commentary from the old men of MMOGdom available at Broken Toys and Terra Nova.
"Is Punkbuster spyware?"
short answer: no
Long answer:
The description of how the software works sounds like a perfect setup for installing spyware, but I cannot find any documented reports.
perfect setup how? because... its a program?
It's anticheat software. It's approved enough by quite a few major publishers for them to pay evenbalance to implement it. It's used on 99% of servers for most of the biggest MP games out there, despite millions of users, you yourself say you cannot find any documented reports. Punkbuster even comes with most of the game above, or comes with their patches. There is a limit to how careful you need to be without a certain modded-down 'troll' reply being justifed and fair.
Personally, for when playing it's supported games, there is no way I would play on a server that does not have PB enabled.