The anticheat of Battle.net and the epic game launcher (or Fortnite) seems to work pretty well in my experience.
It is different with VAC, the anticheat of Steam.
Since about 2013/2014 where I'm active in steam games (CSGO and a few Call of Duty parts) the anticheat has been terrible. The worst in CSGO, for 2 months it felt pretty good where "VACNET", whose artificial anticheat AI was developed.
But yes, the cheat developers quickly bypassed this too.
Gabe Newell, the founder of Valve (including Steam), had an estimated $ 4.1 billion in 2016. (Source Wikipedia)
Of course I can understand that afterwards everything doesn't matter, he can swim in the money, but why can't he worry about a reasonable anticheat at least?
He would only have to worry about someone from his Valve / Steam team sitting down with e.g. Epicgames and clarifying that you can rent their anticheat. I can't understand this and I think it's all a huge, sad embarrassment.
The anticheat of Battle.net and the epic game launcher (or Fortnite) seems to work pretty well in my experience.
You don't mean that seriously, do you?
CoD is filled with cheaters, at Fortnite you will find something similar. To say they have a good AntiCheat is a joke. With CoD one seems to tolerate the whole thing rather than elsewhere.
There's no absolutely functional anti-cheat protection based on IP, some are worse, others better. It doesn't help to buy anything if the AntiCheat is not compatible with the code of the game.
The others certainly don't offer it. If I wasn't, why should I help the competition? Sure, I get money, but they can't pay so much that it's worth it for Blizzard or Epic Games. Not to mention compatibility problems.
So I've played Fortnite relatively intensively since Chapter 1 Season 5 and I've had 2-3x people since then.
And I didn't play the new Call of Duty Modern Warfare on Battle.net so intensely now, just a few days / weeks, but I hadn't seen any cheaters in that time.
Yes, I'm serious, you probably have other experiences.
At Fortnite I can only say that a lot of people tryharden / sweat a lot.
So surely there are some people running around with a mouse macro, which I may not have noticed, but this blatant wallhacking / aimbotten and all the other sick stuff that you know from CSGO and the Cod's on Steam, as I said, was at 2-3x People.
Even if I search for cheats to buy on the internet for research purposes to keep myself up to date, I hardly find any cheats at Fortnite / MW that are offered. At CSGO and the CoD's that are available on Steam, I find lots of cheats to buy.
That would be possible.
As in all parts of CoD there are some cheaters that will not just change from title to title. CoD should be the game series in which most cheaters are on the move, but CS naturally joins in there. CoD also makes it very easy for cheaters because of the code and does not pursue something with special motivation on top of it.
The current CoD is no exception, there are enough walking around. Often you can find them in HC because it is not so noticeable there and the kill cam is deactivated. In the new BR mode "Warzone" you will find them more often than in normal game, but this is probably simply because it is playable for free.
Fortnite is certainly no exception and also has problems with the cheaters. I've never really played Fortnite a lot and I don't speak from my own experience, but I've read enough about it. But it would also be surprising if a free BR would not be occupied by cheaters, which is literally an invitation for every Hinz and Kunz to deal with cheating.
There's no (online) game in which cheaters are not available, so it doesn't matter which game you are talking about. Personally, I actually noticed the least cheaters in Battlefield and I've played every part available on the PC since 1942. I had most of the cheaters in BF3 / BF4, but even these were manageable and mostly so obvious that you didn't get excited about it and simply switched to another server. Another plus why there are relatively few cheaters in Battlefield were the servers, in most cases they were in the hands of clans and were also played and monitored by them. But even in BF5 without a clanserver I hardly noticed a cheater.
Battle Royal is a big sponge for cheaters in every game, so it doesn't matter whether you choose a Fortnite, a PUBG or any other title.
As for the AntiCheat…
There's no AC that works without exception, there are always holes and gaps that are used by cheaters - and quite successfully. The type of lock that the developers also choose is quite ineffective because a cheater is simply not interested in losing an IP or an account. You can buy hacked accounts for relatively little money, on these cheats and then pull through until the ban comes. Alternatively, you can buy stolen keys for a few coins.
The only really effective way in my eyes to keep cheaters from just this would be to ban the hardware, which is technically no problem at all. Of course, a problem would be used hardware on the market, so there's a risk of buying cheater hardware. Even that could be prevented with very simple means.
The question for the developer / publisher is only what is cheaper, actively fight cheaters or let them happen and only take superficial action. Working actively against cheaters requires a lot of personnel, but personnel costs money, gets sick, wants vacation and is all the jokes.
Be that as it may, there will be no successful AntiCheat based on IP / ID, you can invest so much money in the development. But that you simply go there and as a developer buy an AntiCheat presents the development with the problem that the AntiCheat must be adapted to the respective software and that is also a lot of work. So why put a lot of money, time and effort into the AntiCheat you buy when you can earn such good money?
AntiCheat is always a question of cost, because it is important for the developer to find a compromise that is primarily advantageous for the developer, but also not excessively annoying the customer.
CS: GO is a tournament game anyway and focuses on the clans, every reasonably reasonable clan has its own server (s) and manages them accordingly. So why should Valve spend money on an AntiCheat when the best AntiCheat are the server admins?
Even if I search for cheats to buy on the internet for research purposes to keep myself up to date, I hardly find any cheats at Fortnite / MW that are offered. At CSGO and the CoD's that are available on Steam, I find lots of cheats to buy.
Then search
VAC is not Steam's anti-cheat system, just by the way.
I haven't had a cheater in CS: GO for ages, a good trust factor probably makes it possible…
Newell also doesn't tell anyone what he or she has to do, and it doesn't matter whether the anti-cheat system in CS: GO is good or not.
The number of players keeps increasing, so it can't be that bad.
Steam and Valve are not the same thing. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of games on Steam that use other anti-cheats (such as EAC or BattlEye). VAC is an anti-cheat system from Valve, not Steam.
I honestly believe that Gabe Newell doesn't really care about his income. Many Valve employees are primarily focused on doing "revolutionary" and new things (see VR, but also earlier with almost all other Valve projects). The money itches less at first.
It is really difficult to say whether and how you can improve the trust factor. Valve never really explained the system behind it in more detail.
I attribute the increasing number of players in CS: GO to the increased activity of the team behind it rather than the switch to an F2P model. For quite a long time after the game was changed, the numbers didn't increase. Only now that the operation and many good changes have been made to the game (for example the scrimmage mode) will the numbers increase more than once.
Money is less of an issue, CS: GO was never expensive and runs on relatively bad PCs.
In my opinion, the CS: GO team has done pretty well in the past few months, with (for valve relationships) good communication with the community and high quality content.
