Cheaters and hackers in online games on PC
Cheaters and hackers in online games on PC
The only CoD Black Ops title I own includes VAC. I’ve stopped playing online games unless they’re co-op focused, and I’m much more satisfied now.
I haven't purchased an NBA 2K game in years due to this. Absolutely, I believe an anti-cheat system would barely affect the budget of 2K Games, since their titles are essentially virtual casinos masquerading as sports games. I just hope more people would act like they have a legitimate reason to buy it—just because it's the only basketball game available. This is the kind of justification you'd hear from someone struggling with an addiction, not from someone who approaches gaming as a hobby. They constantly complain about the games being poor, yet they persist like addicts, and that’s why the gaming community truly needs better support.
There are various ways to complicate things, yet nothing can render them completely unachievable. Ultimately, most games operate directly on users' devices. Regardless of the effort invested in safeguarding against reverse engineering, the game must still function locally on each machine. Running any application—games included—within a virtual machine that records every instruction and memory state is a straightforward process. There’s nothing to bypass this, and if you manage to stop the game from running in a virtual environment, the same applies when using physical hardware.
While attempting to reverse engineer sophisticated systems such as modern AAA titles is extremely challenging in real-world scenarios, it remains feasible for highly skilled individuals. From a business standpoint, the financial investment in DRM must be carefully considered against the reality that, with a determined attacker, all that expenditure is ultimately wasted.
It seems to come down to the familiar adage: Cheaters will find a way.