The majority of gaming companies have difficulty dealing with hackers in their games. It’s no secret that singleplayer games get pirated all the time while multiplayer games are plagued with cheats.
Most of these hacks are used in FPS games. For example, players use wallhacks to see through walls to detect when and where another player is coming for them. God mode hacks make a player invisible, with some having unlimited ammo. There are hacks to gain currency or ranks in-game. There’s also the infamous aimbot that helps players auto headshot any enemy.
Naturally, these hacks destroy any other player’s experience in-game. Having a lot of hackers can even make others turn away from the game and stop playing altogether. Of course, nobody likes getting shot from 1 km through walls.
The world’s biggest PC games are fighting a new surge of cheaters and hackers. Here’s my look at the aimbot and wallhack cheating going on in CoD: Warzone, Destiny 2, Valorant, PUBG, Overwatch, and more: https://t.co/O9BIoQk1jS pic.twitter.com/H9Vyd057pX
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) May 6, 2020
Is there a way to stop this?
A lot of development teams are trying to figure this out. There are a lot of great ideas for singleplayer games. Some games become more punishing while others downright troll pirates until they’ve probably had enough of the game.
As for multiplayer games, some teams are trying desperate measures. A lot of developers are using whatever resources they have to try and defeat hackers. When they use those resources, they can’t use them on the advancement of their game. It’s a juggle on trying to stop hackers and making new content for the game.
In the case of Riot Games, they have taken extreme measures to try and curb cheaters away from their games like Valorant, Riot Games’ latest release. Unfortunately, their anti-cheat system for it called Vanguard has little to be desired due to issues of privacy and stopping other programs from working. To make up for that, they put up a bounty of $100,000 to discover vulnerabilities in the system.
Over the last week, we've noticed a lot of conversation about Vanguard and its kernel mode driver. Our privacy and security team is here to share more about the new anti-cheat system and the steps we're taking to protect your data. Learn more here: https://t.co/z8mrOS9B88
— Riot Games (@riotgames) April 17, 2020
Riot Game’s take on curbing hackers
The payouts that Riot Games have posted on their HackerOne bounty board reportedly are some of the biggest in gaming. By comparison, Nintendo’s bounties max out at $20,000 while Rockstar Games’ ends at $10,000.
Riot Games’ intent for their bounty program is to entice hackers to work for them instead of against them. It is a smart idea but we have yet to see if it will work or not. From my standpoint, I have to say that anything that will reduce the number of hackers is more than welcome.
YouTube: Running a Bug Bounty Program
Photo credit: The feature photo has been taken by Alex Haney.
Source: Riot blog post / PC Gamer / Andy Chalk (PC Gamer) / Jessica Conditt (Engadget)
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