this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2026
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Do you suppose games only use obfuscation as security? In turn-based games you have the time to not trust client infomation and real-time games could give the client less info until it's actually needed. There would still be cheating via outside communication or outside tools.. as cheating isn't a technical issue solved by denying user software freedom - it's a social issue.
I want you to know that I literally work in this space and you are handwaving away an incredibly complex problem space that hundreds of smart people have been trying to solve for decades now and it's only getting harder (good cheat suites use hypervisor mods and direct memory access kits these days). I would love to educate this community but I'm under NDA (in addition to not wanting to provide information that attackers can use to better understand how we approach this problem space)
Cheaters are preferable to your proprietary kernel-level anti-cheat and whatever sneaky plans you may have for users and their computers. Good luck winning an arms race.
If I ever do multiplayer (I hate networking) I plan to explore treating cheaters as a service problem, like pirates are to piracy.
Only some cheaters are a service problem. There are a number of different cheater archetypes and some of them do not respond to service offerings
And believe it or not, while kernel level provides a level of access that could be used for nefarious spying we actually do much MORE stuff people would find distasteful when we DON'T have kernel access, because we have to infer more without direct access to the places where cheat makers do their work
I'm unaware of any (1st party) game services being offerered to cheaters, or any explicit positive association. Best I can think of is a more neutural "anarchy" servers (i.e Minecraft). I imagine implimenting built-in "cheats" you would expect from 3rd parties (e.g. auto aim, wallhacks) but framed in a way that is hopefully tolerable to non-cheaters (perhapscalling it a handicap).
Having control over others' computing, even with good intentions, creates a bad incentive. One must resist the temptation to use that control for your own benefit at the user's expense. So no, I wouldn't believe devs typically act more immoral when they have less unjust power over others' computing.