Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting.
Like Denuvo DRM or shader compilation stutter,"kernel level anticheat" is one of the most high profile issues dogging PC gaming in recent years. The default position of most gamers is that it's a crutch used by"lazy devs", it ruins performance, and could even compromise security. However, after reading games marketing veteran Ryan K.
That feeling of intrusion can often result in a tense, sometimes hysterical tone to conversations about the software: review bombs, threats, more"lazy dev" discourse, etc. The experts that Rigney interviewed are clearly well aware of how unpopular kernel level anticheat is with some players.
I'm less worried about developers abusing kernel access, and more concerned with potential vulnerabilities introduced for third-party actors to exploit. Rigney cited two examples: the infamousHowever, all the experts Rigney talked to agree on a compelling argument: it's in a developer's best interest not to breach customers' trust by abusing kernel level access or offering a product that negatively impacts their system.
And, at the end of the day, it's the continued proliferation and profitability of cheating in games that's driven us to this point. Some gamers even willingly embrace kernel level anticheat for its more certain protection. Public policy researcher Jonathan Hoferabout FACEIT, a platform with kernel level anticheat that some gamers willingly play Counter-Strike 2 on—the game itself uses other, seemingly less effective forms of anticheat.
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