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However, with the advent of multiplayer titles where gamers compete against opponents for glory — and sometimes for fame and prizes — cheating in video games has taken on a whole new, malicious. Valorant hasn't even left closed beta and cheaters are already cheating. Riot told me two weeks ago that the first cheaters had been banned just days after the beta launched, and now players are.
By/Oct. 6, 2020 4:45 pm EST
Cheating In Games
In the early days of gaming, cheats were harmless fun that spiced up a game. If you were tired of going through the same levels in Goldeneye 007, you could turn on some cheats to unlock all weapons, give yourself unlimited ammo, and transform James Bond into a bobbleheaded nightmare with Donkey Kong arms. However, with the advent of multiplayer titles where gamers compete against opponents for glory — and sometimes for fame and prizes — cheating in video games has taken on a whole new, malicious meaning.
Instead of using cheats to pummel AI opponents in Warcraft 3, gamers now use them to gain unfair advantages against their fellow opponents. These can include wallhacks that provide x-ray vision, aimbots that automatically hone in on enemy skulls, and speed hacks that turn players into Sonic the Hedgehog. While some games are relatively free of cheaters, others are so inundated with hackers that you will be lucky to go a single multiplayer session without encountering at least one (or 20) cheaters.
If you play — or plan to play — any of the games on this list, be warned. These are titles that have been ruined by too many cheaters.
Call of Duty: Warzone
What do you get when you place a first-person shooter and battle royale in a blender? Call of Duty: Warzone. The game has attracted well over 50 million players, but popularity is a double-edged sword. The more fans attracted to the game, the more cheaters try to ruin the fun.
Cheaters steamrolled Warzone ever since it launched, and no matter what Activision did, the company was always playing catch up. A month after Warzone launched, Activision had already banned 70 thousand cheater accounts, but that wasn't enough. Audience patience wore thin as complaints poured in with frightening regularity. Casual and professional gamers voiced their rage on Twitter, and Activision tried anti-cheat protocols as radical as politely asking players to not use aimbots and wallhacks. Nothing worked, at least initially.
In May of 2020, Activision began another anti-cheat tactic: shadowbans. Instead of loudly announcing whether or not an account was banned, shadowbans let cheaters log into the game and start searching for matches, only to be hit with unending 'searching for match' screens. This subterfuge has gone a long way, as cheater forums (yes, those exist) are drowning in the tears of hackers who cannot play the game anymore thanks to shadowbans.
Fortnite
Fortnite has a low barrier of entry but a high skill ceiling. The title mixes third-person shooter combat with on-the-fly building mechanics. With enough resources, players can construct ramshackle wooden monoliths that scoff at gravity, then jump off the side and snipe would-be pursuers. It's a lot to take in and even more to master, and many players use the maligned shortcut of cheating.
Cheaters in Fortnite might be some of the most shameless on the internet. These gamers don't just limit themselves to griefing casual players — some are even guilty of cheating during tournaments. Epic Games has tried every trick in the book to stop cheating, even going so far as to sue them, yet not even wading through a court battle is enough to dissuade some gamers from hacking. Some gamers even falsely claim to have cheated or have been banned for cheating just to farm some clout.
Cheating is such a problem in Fortnite that neither fans nor legit players give ex-cheaters the benefit of the doubt. You get caught cheating once, you can bet all your Slurp Juice audiences and fellow participants will boo you during tournaments and cheer when you lose. Once that target is painted on your back, it is never washing off.
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
The new guy on the block, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout came out of nowhere and seemingly stole the battle royale crown from the reigning champions. However, since the game isn't an FPS, cheaters had to think outside the box. They couldn't use wallhacks, aimbots, and other common battle royale cheats. Still, hackers powered on and made the game a cheater's paradise, much to the annoyance of Fall Guys' players and developers.
Cheaters have implemented a truckload of hacks designed to circumvent Fall Guys' Takeshi's Castle-styled obstacles. They have programmed ways to hover indefinitely and teleport to the finish line, and subreddits are full of angry players. To combat the problem, Mediatonic created a cheater-only island where they could shuffle off guilty players to cheat amongst themselves and let legit gamers play in peace. Out of sight, out of mind. However, the plan had one fatal flaw: Mediatonic's anti-cheat detection system wasn't migrating enough hackers to start a match. Moreover, the cheaters got wise to Mediatonic's scheme and circumvented it by teaming up with friends. So, the island was shut down, but the developers didn't throw in the towel.
Halfway through Fall Guys' first season, the developers launched the 'Big Yeetus and the Anti-Cheatus' update that introduced, among other things, a new anti-cheat system developed with Epic Games' help. Only time will tell if it pans out.
Grand Theft Auto Online
Grand Theft Auto is all about stepping into the shoes of criminals, pulling off heists, and escaping police who are simultaneously trigger-happy and criminally negligent. Cheats are nothing new to the franchise and have sat shotgun since day one. However, cheats are harmless in a single-player game. In multiplayer-focused titles such as GTA Online, hacks are far more annoying — especially since cheaters rarely get a slap on the wrist.
Despite Rockstar claiming the use of mods, cheats, and hacks will result in a suspension, cheaters overrun GTA Online's servers. Some players have taken the law into their own hands and meted out vigilante justice since, in their eyes, Rockstar doesn't care. To add insult to injury, though, Rockstar will gladly patch a glitch that gives players nigh-infinite money — and reset accounts that used the glitch. Meanwhile, more annoying cheats such as the god mode van are still in the game.
The kicker is: Many cheat/mod creators turned cheats into a lucrative business. Some sell mods (and hacked consoles) for one-time fees and others offer subscriptions for their services, complete with customer support. Ironically, cheat creators are generally more benign than actual cheaters, as some create mods to protect players from griefers and their hacks.
PUBG
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is one of the most popular battle royale games on the planet. And, with popularity often comes a high number of cheaters. The larger your game's player population, the larger its cheater population. It's statistics 101.
Now, PUBG comes in several different styles, including computer, console, and mobile. Mobile is one of the more densely populated options, and thus spawns cheaters left, right, and center. Within the span of one week in August, over 2 million accounts were banned from PUBG Mobile for hacking. And to demonstrate they were vehemently anti-hacker, PUBG Corp. teamed up with Tencent to arrest cheat developers — in China.
PUBG's cheating problem isn't all bad news, however. In an ironic turn of events, some coders have taken advantage of the game's rampant cheating to develop troll cheats. These hacks lure unscrupulous players in with lavish insta-win promises, only to install trojans that sabotage the victims' game sessions and upload the resulting self-owns onto YouTube.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Ideally, when a cheater is banned from a game, they have to spend $60 for a new copy. But what happens when a video game is infested with cheaters right before it goes free-to-play? Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a case study in the ensuing chaos.
When CS:GO used a pay-to-play model, cheating was a major problem, but in December of 2018, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive went free-to-play. That was the sounding of the dinner bell for hackers. One month later, Valve banned a record-holding 600,000 accounts, most of which were for CS:GO cheating violations. Plus, these were VAC bans, which prevent accounts from playing all multiplayer games on Steam. Some anti-cheat vigilantes also joined in the cause. For example, a coder by the name of 2Eggs developed a deep-learning AI to root out cheaters, which resulted in a whopping 15,000 bans as of May 2020.
While cheaters can make gamers rage quit, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's cheaters have been a source of levity thanks to fake hacks. If someone downloads the wrong cheats, they will infect their computer with a trojan that plays musical chairs with their game client. No matter the result, though, they always lose — and the consequences are posted on YouTube.
Destiny 2
Destiny 2 is a fairly popular MMO, but even it isn't immune to the not-so-invisible hand of hackers. The game has a thriving PvP community, which is prime real estate for cheating. You would think Bungie does everything in its power to stop cheaters, but its loyal fanbase is far from convinced.
Apparently, rumor has it Destiny 2 is anti-cheat system free. Bungie would like gamers to believe that isn't true, but most players don't trust that claim. After all, the Destiny 2 security team does not hand out VAC bans, even though cheating increased by 50 percent during 2020. The Trials PvP event in particular was egregiously swallowed by wallhacks, aimbots, and lag switching.
Not only has cheating marred Destiny 2's PvP field, but these hacks spread paranoia that pours salt in the already festering wound. Will players encounter a cheater, and if so, how will they cheat? Will they rain down infinite Nova Bombs? Fire sniper rifles like machine guns? Paranoia is neither unreasonable nor unjustified in Destiny 2.
Valorant
Many gamers adopt a video game as early as possible. Audiences often pre-order titles to start playing on release day and get a leg up on the competition. And yes, this includes cheaters. Sometimes, hackers are so early to the party they ruin the experience for others before a game launches.
Valorant is the first title developed by Riot Games in over ten years that doesn't have anything to do with League of Legends. In 2020, Riot held a beta to see if Valorant was ready for the big time. However, cheaters used the beta as an opportunity to do what they do best: cheat. Hacking was rampant in beta Valorant, as participants noticed hacks such as aimbotting in their pre-launch matches. Professional gamers, including dev1ce, encountered numerous cheaters, some of whom were brazen enough to proudly admit their wrongdoings. And, cheaters reigned supreme in Valorant even after the game exited beta, or so gamers such as Ninja claim.
However, the influx of cheaters is not due to ignorance on Riot's part. According to some metrics, over half of Valorant's cheaters weren't reported before they were banned. To help combat the situation, though, Riot hired the anti-cheat vigilante GamerDoc, who now works with the company's dedicated anti-hacker task force.
Earlier this week, the world was introduced to a 24-year-old who is finding cheaters in video games. His name is Mohamed Al-Sharifi, an Iraqi who lives in London, and since he got laid off from his job for COVID-related reasons, he's spent his time busting hackers -- and he's very good at it. In fact, through multiple discord servers and other means, he's amassed a group of volunteers that help him snuff out the 'bad guys.'
Cheating and hacking is always a discussion in gaming, particularly in Battle Royales. Whether it's a dispute over top prize money in a competition, or top streamers lamenting the amount of hackers they experience in an eight-hour play session, the topic regularly comes up. In November, FaZe Jarvis received a lifetime ban from Epic Games for using hacks publicly in Fortnite. Jarvis is not the first and certainly not the last.
The topic of cheating has come up recently in Fortnite as well, particularly as new events such as the Fortnite Champion Series begin to ramp up again.
So how do people cheat in game? One way is collusion -- where you collude with opponents to gain points and advantage, to 'gamify' the leaderboard to advance to a tournament or receive more prize money. 'Storm Surging' is one such example, where players will deliberately wound -- but not kill -- one another in order to avoid a storm surge penalty. Famously, two Canadian players were banned for 14 days following allegations of cheating prior to the 2019 Fortnite World Cup (but still qualified and participated).
Then there are the cheat programs that are found online. This is where I decided to consult with Al-Sharifi, who was recently profiled by VICE about how this is accomplished and how it can be prevented.
'It's really easy to cheat in [Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone],' Al-Sharifi told ESPN. He explained that certain websites (that he declined to provide so as not to give them any free promotion) have one-day pass keys that cost around $5 to $20 depending on features.
'It's as simple as going to your local shop to buy snacks,' he said.
In one such example, when you download the cheat program and give it administrative access on your computer, the program loads its driver into a kernel and then allows you access to many cheat functions, including information on enemy locations, an easier-to-see color palette for weapons and enemies, enemy weapon and loadout info and aim assist.
What is a kernel? Think of it as a central nervous system of your PC, connecting software to hardware. It is the layer in between applications and your CPU, memory and devices that essentially controls a lot in your PC. If an application had control of this, it would be very powerful and able to bypass a lot, including manipulating certain programs. Cheat software essentially bypasses any anti-cheat software or detection by using the kernel on your computer.
'Warzone's anti-cheat is completely defenseless, they will never win the war against cheaters for the simple fact that they don't even have a kernel driver,' Al-Sharifi said. 'If you want to win the war against cheaters you need to have an intrusive anti-cheat or you just won't do anything.'
Al-Sharifi said that Infinity Ward, the creators of Call of Duty: Warzone, do regularly ban cheaters, particularly in waves. However, users can simply create another account and download the same cheat software.
'I can play the game right now and cheat for weeks or months and then be banned by their ban wave and it only can take me less then 10 minutes or 1 hour to come back and do the same process again,' he said.
Al-Sharifi loosely estimates that based on the information he has collected and is aware of, 10% of the Fortnite user base cheats in some way, while it's closer to 25% for Warzone. Al-Sharifi says Fortnite does make a more concerted effort to stop cheaters.
One game that Al-Sharifi compliments in the anti-cheat realm is VALORANT. The new tactical shooter from Riot Games comes with the Vanguard anti-cheat software that installs directly on your computer as a measure to prevent hacking. While privacy concerns have been raised about the Vanguard software itself, particularly its kernel-mode driver, Al-Sharifi believes this is what developers should be doing to attempt to eradicate the problem.
'(Riot) have completely gotten rid of cheat dev pasters, and public cheats,' Al-Sharifi said. 'It is extremely hard to cheat on VALORANT, and also hard to obtain private cheats for VALORANT. Sadly enough, you cannot get rid of cheaters, but what VALORANT has done with vanguard is extremely impressive since they have made it very, very hard to cheat, which should be the goal for every company.'
Al-Sharifi notes that third-party anti-cheat efforts do exist, like BattlEye and Easy Anti-Cheat, but the hackers 'are like [five] steps ahead of them' and the most effective method would be for the developers to create the measure themselves.
Is cheating truly a major problem in gaming and esports? While many will say the answer is yes, a few sources closer to Epic Games and Infinity Ward (who wish to remain anonymous) told ESPN that though it does exist, it is blown way out of proportion, particularly by public outcry on social media. One source said that often, a tilted player will publicly complain about a cheater with no evidence, which will lead to the conversation being brought up again, even though cheating wasn't necessarily the cause at all. Others have said that companies, in particular Epic Games, have dealt very well with situations like these recently. Epic didn't respond to a request for an official comment about how they deal with cheaters, while Infinity Ward pointed to a series of tweets that dealt with their response to cheating in Call of Duty.
With millions of users playing games like Warzone and Fortnite every day, and competitions like the Fortnite World Cup and the Fortnite Champion Series offering sizable prize pools, the allure to gain an advantage -- whether the reasons are monetary or, perhaps, an addiction to winning -- will always be prevalent. Competitive integrity, at least according to Al-Sharifi, should be held in the highest regard, which means shutting out the cheaters.
NEWS AND NOTES
1) Speaking of competitive Fortnite events, 14-year-old gamer Gen.G Moqii became the first female competitor to win an official Fortnite Champion Series solo event on Sunday, in the stacked European region no less.
'I'm glad I made it as far as I did, but this is just the qualifier, not the semifinals or the finals, so there's still a lot more to be done,' Moqii told ESPN. 'I am happy with my performance during the qualifiers, and I hope I can do well in the semis and finals as well.'
Her father (both Moqii and her father wished not to disclose their names) believes this was a long time coming for his daughter.
'I'm so proud of her and her achievement,' he told ESPN. 'But I'm not surprised at her top placement because we knew how capable she is and that this day was coming.'
In terms of the magnitude of her accomplishment, Moqii is focused on being the best player she can be and does not dwell on hyperbole.
'I don't really look at it as making history. I just want to be known for being a good player in Fortnite, and I try not to focus on other things right now. I practice and study the game a lot, and want to improve even more between now and finals.'
'Gender doesn't matter in this,' 14-year-old Fortnite competitor Soleil 'Ewok' Wheeler told ESPN. The important thing is to support each other while you're playing.'
Fortnite caster Arten 'BallaTW' Esa told ESPN the win was a long time coming for someone of her talents and previous results that might have been even greater. 'An opens stage is something we all already knew she could win, she's gotten close multiple times,' BallaTW said. ' But there's a lot of volatility .. in my mind her qualifying for finals of Dreamhack Anaheim and then FNCS Invitational was more important and more difficult. However, (we) can't understate the impact of seeing a 14-year-old girl at the top of a leaderboard. This will hopefully open the floodgates in making it more common for girls to compete at a high level.'
2) Warzone Season Five brings with it not just another 700-gig update (just kidding, it's only 36), but new additions to Warzone: the stadium roof is blown off (FINALLY!) and now you can drop inside, trading bullets around the concourse and different sections. I wonder if you'll get to watch a football or soccer game too? Oh, there's also a speeding train somewhere on the map that crunches vehicles. Enjoy!
3) The newest member of NRG Fortnite, Clix, won the Bugha Throwback Cup on July 31. I wrote about NRG's footprint in Fortnite a couple of columns ago.
4) One other concern about Fortnite competitive comes from CourageJD. After citing the amount of awesome personalities and undiscovered talent there is in the Fortnite scene, the popular streamer lamented about the spectator client in a tweet.
I will say that the wide shot of the builds after a game has concluded is one of the prettiest visuals in all of esports.
5) This week we also got more Marvel / Fortnite collab, with the Hulk Smashers pickaxe and bonus Hulkbuster available to users that completed the Marvel Avengers game beta on PS$/XBOX One. This is a smart way to get players to get one game and play it through so they can enjoy a unique cosmetic in another game they already play. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Epic Games' collaborations with celebrities, brands and leagues is undefeated.
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X men the official game cheats. Speaking of collabs...
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6) I'm going to be in Fortnite this Saturday .. because of Tetris!
Cheater Game Online
That is 100% factual. I am the host and one of the commentators for the Classic Tetris World Championships, one of the biggest retro esports tournaments around. Last year, the tournament was featured as part of ESPN 8: The Ocho, a yearly day at ESPN where the most bizarre but awesome sports are featured (including classic Tetris). On Aug. 8 this year, The Ocho is coming to Fortnite on the Big Screen, which includes a re-airing of a 30-minute 2018 CTWC special. So, with apologies to Game Awards creator and frequent host in Fortnite Geoff Keighley, I am now Fortnite's favorite personality from Toronto.