Summary
Few things are worse than when an online game gets infiltrated by cheaters. Most recently, that game wasMonster Hunter Wilds, withplayers reporting that the online leaderboards were filled with blatant cheaters.
The potential for cheaters to ruin the fun of those around them is something companies take very seriously. In one instance,Fortnite named, shamed and sued a competitive cheater. Elsewhere,Apex Legends pulled its Steam Deck support due to cheaters making use of the Linux OS.
Now, in a new report from TechCrunch,Riot Games, the studio behind the popularLeague of LegendsandValorantfranchises, hasoutlined how it’s dealing with cheaters, including one sneaky and smart tactic.
The Best Way To Combat Cheaters Is To Pretend To Be One
To start, Riot makes use of its Vanguard kernel-level anti-cheat system to actively find and ban cheaters. Phillip Koskinas, Riot’s director and head of anti-cheat, revealed that “thousands of cheaters” are banned on Valorant daily.
Still, sometimes that’s not enough, and that’s where Riot’s own unique efforts come into play. Dubbed the “reconnaissance arm,” the team obtains and catalogs threats, largely by acquiring them. By posing as bad actors, they’re able to infiltrate communities to find out what’s being worked on in secret.
“We’ve even gone as far as giving anti-cheat information to establish credibility. We’ll masquerade as though it was something we [reverse engineered], and explain how an anti-cheat technique works to demonstrate that we know stuff,” Koskinas said. “And then leverage our way into something in development, and then sit there until it launches, allow it to acquire users and then ban everybody.”
Interestingly enough, Riot doesn’t outright ban everyone. Rather, the company lets a “little” cheating happen in order to slow down the evolution of cheats. “If we hit every player every time, they will just change cheats until they find the one that isn’t detected,” he said.
While part of Riot’s transparency when it comes to cheaters is undoubtedly to shame them, it also stems from a place of care for its consumers. Due to how much access Riot has through its anti-cheat, Koskinas believes “players deserve to know how the company is using that privilege.”
In other words, the next time you might find yourself discussing some cheats with other “cheaters,” be warned that one of them may be an undercover employee. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
