Summary
- Cheating has arguably never been more rampant in video games, with bad actors popping up left and right to ruin the fun of everyone around them.
- In a new interview, the co-creator of Counter-Strike called the situation an “epidemic.”
- In order to combat cheaters, companies are routinely deploying kernel-level programs, along with other means, though it’s more of a deterrent and not a solution.
Nowadays, it seems like no game, no matter how big, is safe from the inevitable influx of cheaters. In the past couple of months alone, Elden Ring’s PvP has been infiltrated by bad actors, as have the leaderboards of Monster Hunter Wilds, which, by the way, barely came out in late February.
In speaking with Gaming World Media’s Jake Lucky, Minh Le, who helped co-create Counter-Strike, called the situation an “epidemic.”
“It’s an epidemic, because 20 years ago, when Counter-Strike was first out, cheating was a bit of an issue, but it never reached the levels that it is right now,” Le explained (thanks Insider Gaming for the transcript). “Back when I was working on Counter-Strike, I would play game, I would probably encounter a cheater maybe 5 percent of the time, maybe 10 percent. But these days, when I’m jumping on a multiplayer game, it’s like maybe 40 percent or 50 percent of the time I’m running into some dubious (stuff) going on.
“As a player, you don’t want to play games that have that — and as a developer, you don’t want to make a game that’s being ruined by this. It’s a really big challenge, and it’s a challenge that we’ve been trying to address for 20 years.”
Considering just how popular Counter-Strike is in online circles (Counter-Strike 2 routinely eclipses 1,000,000 players in a 24-hour window), Le certainly knows a thing or two about the type of behavior that is prevalent.
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If Cheating Is That Bad, Then What’s Being Done To Stop It?
A lot has been done by video game companies in order to stop cheaters in their tracks, and, hopefully, catch things before they even impact players, including through the use of kernel-level programming.
Recently, Riot Games revealed that it has its own “reconnaissance arm” that routinely infiltrates cheating communities in order to find exploits that are in development. Meanwhile, Marvel Rivals has begun booting impacted players mid-game so they don’t experience further cheaters. At one point, last November, Black Ops 6 claimed it had banned over 19,000 accounts since Ranked Play launched.
Still, no matter what work is done, it seems like it’s only a temporary solution to an ever-growing wound. Or as Le aptly put it, an “epidemic.” Can’t we all just play games normally?
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