Nobody Likes A Cheater

How Can Developers Better Address Cheating In Games And E-sports?

- Kenneth Ang

Sure, giving yourself unfair advantages in single-player games will probably raise fewer eyebrows than it would in a PvP setting simply because your performance doesn't affect the experience of others, but it's hardly the most satisfying way to win, don't you think? Not only does it take away from the challenge of completing the game through sheer grit and skill, but it essentially tramples over all the effort the game's developers have put into creating them.

Which brings us to today's topic: what are some options that developers can explore to better address cheating in games, especially with esports becoming as prominent an industry as it is?

But let's not jump the gun. Before we can talk about what developers can do about these issues, let's first go over three of the more common tactics employed by cheaters these days, as well as several examples of how they've compromised the integrity of esports.

AIMBOTS AND WALL-HACKS

For the record, I hate aimbots. And so does every honest, self-respecting first-person shooter player out there. After all, having a piece of code do the hard work for you in an FPS game really defeats the purpose of playing it. There wouldn't be any more satisfaction from reacting faster than your opponent did, nor the aww yes moment of scoring a difficult headshot. At that point, you'd might as well be playing Boxhead on Y8.com.