355,000 Apex Legends Cheaters Banned On PC, And That's Just The Beginning

@BoxOfPocky: It's more about letting cheaters come to their own conclusions to leave the game. Forcing a cheater out of something they like to do is just going to reinforce them into doing it again. They will just open another account and continue with what they were doing. They won't have any attachments to previous accounts because they don't need to worry about leveling up or items.

Allowing cheaters to become bored and leave on their own will reduce the chances of coming back. It also has a side effect of reducing the cheating in other games. If the person is occupied in one game they won't be in another game.

"Why waste more time, energy, and resources to them?"

Unfortunately, that's true. But more in the sense of how much has been invested in the anti-cheat banning technology already. I doubt companies are going to abandon what they have put so much money into up to this point.

What I wouldn't mind seeing is the more creative ways of dealing with cheaters. More akin to how some games deal with piracy.

https://www.gamesradar.com/9-clever-ways-game-developers-thwarted-piracy/

@jenovaschilld: "But if you set a game where their actions cannot effect others, then most all settle in to the game peacefully."

That's kind of what I'm saying. They are still free to play the game, so there won't be drops in numbers. Keeping them in isolated servers avoids bothering other fair playing players, which should help keep the peace.

"It didnt work as they would just quit the game..."

That is the result I'm implying it should be. The player should be the one quitting the game. This means they are less likely to just reenter the game with a different account and continue to harass other players. It shouldn't be seen as a bad thing for the developers as these players are very unlikely to be supporting the game in any meaningful way. Also, by now, many developers are very good at PR'ing their stories. Instead of them stating that 100k players have left the game, they would spin it into a story of 100k cheaters left the game and the game is now better than ever.

Now in reality, my thought is it is never going to happen. Too much money has been spent on anti-cheat technology to just abandon it now (and subsequently cheat technology on account of the cheaters.) Even Windows 10 incorporates anti-cheat technologies (It can be turned off at the moment, but I'm sure Microsoft will eventually integrated it into the system.) The easiest way to use the technology with the most impact is to show other players that the cheaters have been banned. This in turn give the other players a feeling that something is being done and the cheaters got their comeuppance. Telling other players that the cheaters are now on a private server of their own doesn't have the same impact.

At the end of the day though it's just another cat and mouse game.

@attirex: Oh you mean like the NFL.

@grom_lom: That's a controller mod. And the cheat functions are still regulated, so it's not easy at all. Still quite risky.

Still nowhere near prevalent as cheaters on PC. I encounter them roughly every third game on PC. It's very rare on consoles.

@realguitarhero5: Even if theres only 500,000 in 50,000,000 that's still one percent which is one in every game on average.

@nikon133: Yeah license keys would be cool. So dynamic is from consumer to their devices - say a router. And from provider to consumer, (that IP), would be the one banned. No possibility of a wrong IP ban. See here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address, This would identify the correct computer or console offending even if at a internet cafe, mc donalds, etc.

Any game, there will always be cheaters on any platform. PC is easier due to third party software.

@Jinzo_111887: I think your getting dynamic assigned IP addresses assigned by router to different device - while a provider who would recognize you - John Doe who pays for internet - would be banned and all of the IP given to any and all devices for that customer.

Yeah, there are groups of players that have tried to spam abuse reports at a single player who didnt do anything wrong to get them banned. Lets say a mmorpg where a guild reports a single player for profanity. But now the algorithm used for reporting is more complex and a few or groups of players cannot trigger a ban to a single person.

A publisher.developer have little fear or getting it wrong, as much as not getting paid. Even a free to play game, monetary value is based on player base numbers.

@beizelby: Not really, VPN usage adds alot of latency (well alot to FPS gamers) - which makes most FPS not very playable. IP banning is the best way, even for just 30min first time, 2hr next time, etc.

But publishers make money on sheer volume of players as well through selling to third parties. When you ban a IP it reduces total numbers also. And even though in the story above they banned 330k players, they are still registered as active users. See https://www.gamesindustry.biz/ developer section/ articles, for more info.