Game company Valve has let 40,000 cheaters run into the lamp in one go by performing a devious trick. The company was fed up with the many gamers flouting the rules of Dota 2. Time for a ‘honeypot’, which turned out to be more of a Troye horse for several games that are now being punished for their actions.
Valve’s honeypot
Is it provocation from Valve? Of course, but not without reason. Where cheating in games used to be mainly something to be able to skip a level via a code, for example, and where you mainly had yourself with yourself in times without the internet, this has changed in a time when large online games are played with millions of people. at the same time quite different meaning. Especially in the case of Dota 2, which is also a major esports title, cheating must certainly be combated. Here’s how Valve handled that.
The PC game was affected by software that people used to cheat in Dota 2. It had patched the leak, but decided to build in a mechanism to catch all those cheaters. The cheater software was able to work because it used internal information from the Dota client that is normally not available during gameplay.
40,000 Dota 2 cheaters
Valve writes“We released a patch as soon as we understood what method these cheats used. This patch created a honeypot: a portion of the data in the game client that would never be read during normal gameplay, but could be read by these exploits. ” All 40,000 of the accounts now banned have used the hidden information, according to Valve. It fully trusts that every ban is justified.
It blows high from the tower for a reason. “Although the fight against cheaters and cheat developers is often not put in the spotlight, but is done quietly, we wanted to make it very clear how we stand. If you use applications that read data from the Dota client while you game, you run the risk of having your account permanently banned from ever playing Dota again. remove unsportsmanlike play from games.
Other game companies
Ubisoft has now built a system into its games that when you try to aim, it’s very choppy and difficult. League of Legends players, meanwhile, have been warned by Riot Games: beware because the source code for its games has been stolen and cheats will undoubtedly result from it. Cheats creators may think their “jobs” are just a game: Bungie was awarded $4 million in a lawsuit after AimJunkies (a well-known cheat creator) was found guilty of violating Bungie’s copyright.
Yesterday it was also announced that the cheat service EngineOwning must pay Activision $ 3 million for their cheats for Call of Duty. The gaming world is simply a world in which a lot of money is involved. So if you ride that crooked skate, you immediately fall hard. As a user, that is often less hard: although it is not great to lose all that progress that you have undoubtedly achieved in part yourself. But yes, your own fault: if you don’t think you can do it on your own…
Cheating in games
Of course everyone sometimes uses a cheat code or a walkthrough when he or she can’t figure it out. However, it goes way beyond a Rosebud in The Sims: these are large, online games played by the masses, where secondary software spoils the atmosphere and the game. In addition to the fact that it can even jeopardize the competition, which again involves millions of euros. Serious business, in other words, in which game companies unfortunately also have to invest their important time. But, who knows, those honey pots could be made more often like Valve’s, to really put cheaters on their feet.
