Comment by DEADMINCE | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DEADMINCE | Hacker News Reader

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> Let's break this down since you seem confused. I am arguing here that your specific claim that you need this level of control to make a fair video game fails on its merits.

No, I'm not confused. You're just very simply wrong. No question about it, it's not a matter of subjectivity, you are 100% absolutely unequivocally incorrect on this issue.

I can only assume at this point you are incredibly stubborn. You clearly have a lack of experience and knowledge in this area, yet you are doubling down on your position, despite it being trivially shown to be false by numerous real world examples and very basic, irrefutable facts and logic.

But you're the type of person who thinks that you're right no matter what, and that all these game developers must just be inept, right? I feel that I've already wasted time pointing out you are wrong and I'm not interested in an is-not/is-too argument with someone that would rather write essays and argue semantics than have the basic decency to admit they have no clue about what they are talking about. No one's even reading this discussion anymore, is your ego really so great?

I won't be continuing this convo, but feel free to have the last word. Good luck.

Dang you sure are great at saying nothing really confidently. I'm not even being stubborn here, you just refuse to explain yourself. Not only do I have no reason to care what you think, I don't even know what you think, except for "You're wrong." I've said it before and I'll say it again: Why bother to write a reply at all if you're not going to say anything meaningful? I can't even say your argument is ill-formed because you simply haven't made any such thing at all.

I honestly don't know what you're asking me to do here. You show up and say "Nuh uh you're wrong" and I say "Why?" and you say "I can't believe how stubborn you're being!"

What the fuck?

Like the one example you cited is an instance where even on a console this control-based paradigm didn't work, and your only conclusion was that this obviously means you need to control even more stuff, instead of even considering other approaches. It's a real "When your only tool is a hammer" type scenario far as I can tell

My days of thinking AAA gamedev must be a terrible culture in which to make software are certainly coming to a middle. This has downregulated my willingness to take "I'm an experienced gamedev" as an argument for epistemic authority in the future

I definitely explained my position and provided an argument. If you can't see it, it's only because you are letting your own voice and thoughts drown it out. Which, from your post history, seems to be quite a typical behavior for you.

And with that, I truly am done. Again, good luck.

I'm legit not seeing where that is. You say some games, or "game protocols" require client-side protection... why? Just saying it's the only way doesn't explain anything at all. You have confusingly tried to give me examples of... anticheat mechanisms that rely on the total control of some hardware. I know those exist? That's not what's in question.

Maybe your only experience developing these things is with a specific set of tools, and those tools require that? I'm sitting here trying to parse out anything that looks like a rationale and I just can't find it, just more "This is the way it is. This is the way it's done". I know that already. I am saying it doesn't have to be. You're not engaging with the question in any way, just getting upset with me for not conceding that you're right and trying to insult me about it. "I looked up your post history and I see that you argue with people here a lot". You got me I guess?

If it upsets you so much to have this argument, you probably should disengage from it, but I'm genuinely baffled by the whole thing.

Ahh, you baited me again. Excellent job!

> Maybe your only experience developing these things is with a specific set of tools, and those tools require that?

lol. More personal attacks. Your entire thought process is wrong, laughably so. Maybe your only experience is speculating on things you don't have a great knowledge of on HN?

Please, just tell me, if you are so sure you are correct, why these game companies can not solve the problem as you suggest? It's because they are all inept and simply not as smart as you? That's it, right?

> I'm sitting here trying to parse out anything that looks like a rationale and I just can't find it,

Nah. You're just willfully ignoring it. I don't think you're engaging in good faith at all. I'm not confused in the least, despite your constant accusations, and I've been pretty clear and unambiguous.

Your post history shows you as someone who can't ever admit when they are wrong and frequently resorts to ad hominems, and can't bear not having the last word. That's all this is. Now, since you want to play, I guess we'll see how long this goes on for.

I think game companies could totally solve this problem a different way, but their incentives are not aligned to do so. Of course anti-cheat that backdoors a bunch of people's computers is good for the company. They get anticheat and a backdoor that could be valuable for selling data later, or preventing piracy too, or responding to subpoenas and being a hero that caught a terrorist. I dunno. Surveillance and control is popular for a reason. It's not because it's necessary for everything it's billed as necessary for. That's a sales pitch

Also, I guess you're not reading my post history very carefully when deciding it's a good ad hominem attack to use, because just this week I had a heated argument about some culture war shit and the nature of governments and ended up realizing I was being an asshole and making assumptions about someone, and apologized for it. I get that I'm pretty belligerent, especially on topics like how we live in an orwellian dystopia of surveillance and a majority of people in my trade seem to range from complicit to actively advocating for its necessity, but it really sounds like you're responding emotionally to my verbosity and tone and using this to try to discredit me instead of having anything substantive to say about the topic at hand. It is exactly an ad hominem attack, no more, no less

Here, I'm genuinely trying to understand your position and you are only using ad hominem and appeals to authority. My fundamental claim is that anticheat mechanisms for multiplayer games are possible without client-side control, wherever they are possible at all. So far, in opposing this claim, you have not given any justification whatsoever, opting instead to claim this is obvious and well-known and thus requires no justification. I made the only good faith argument either of us have made in this whole thread right at the beginning, the post you initially responded to, and you refuse to engage with it in any sense. Every reply you've made is argument to incredulity, ad hominem, or naked appeal to the authority of your supposed expertise, the consensus of the games industry, etc. I would love to engage in good faith with substantive arguments. You are doing neither.

"You think all the smart people in the games industry are wrong?" is just another appeal to authority. I don't think they're stupid, I think they have no incentive to value the privacy and autonomy of their userbase and look for other solutions

> I think game companies could totally solve this problem a different way, but their incentives are not aligned to do so.

This is your root assumption underlying everything else. This also doesn't make any kind of sense. These companies put a lot of money into trying to stop cheaters. People don't want to play a game that is rampant with cheaters, it's bad for business.

The incentive is there. The incentive is more than there. As are their well reported attempts which end up making some gaming experiences incredibly negative for consumers, reporting in incredibly negative receptions which put a big dent in sales.

To say the incentive is not there is just...silly. Or disingenuous. Either way it's simply not true.

So, again, why hasn't Rockstar or Activision made these trivial modifications to completely and entirely stop cheating serverside? The cheating gives them negative press, hurts sales and turns people away from their software. So why haven't they fixed this since it's so easy?

> Here, I'm genuinely trying to understand your position

You keep repeating this but honestly I think it's bs. My point is clear and been repeated several times. You continue to try and refute the points I make; if you didn't understand my point, you wouldn't be able to do that. Honestly, I think most of your reply here is nothing but noise. Just focus on answering the top part of my reply, because eventually, inevitably your claims will be shown to be false, and the assumptions you rely on will be shown to be incredibly unlikely. I don't expect you to be able to admit that or concede, but I expect it will be entertaining for future readers and useful to those who are unfortunate enough to engage with you in the future.

I swear it's insane that anyone's this obtuse. Read better. I said companies do not have an incentive to respect users' privacy and autonomy. They have anticheat solutions that work for their customers willing to take that hit. That's not in question here. We're talking through each other because you either can't read or are willfully misunderstanding. You have conflated anticheat with kernel access when the whole argument is about whether it's possible to prevent cheating without it. If you're going to insult people's intelligence it would behoove you to be able to read. This isn't some minor quibble either. Nearly every post you've made has fundamentally missed the point of the one it's replying to. I can either assume you're not arguing in good faith or that your language comprehension is inadequate to communicate meaningfully. Either way this is a waste of both of our time

> I swear it's insane that anyone's this obtuse. Read better.

Arrogance and ad homs, as expected. These particular ad homs giving your recent comments are particularly amusing and ironic though.

> I said companies do not have an incentive to respect users' privacy and autonomy.

Your actual claim, the only claim I care about and stepped in to correct you on, is that all cheating can be solved serverside. That's it. I know you like to write essays in place of giving an answer, but that's the only relevant point here.

> You have conflated anticheat with kernel access when the whole argument is about whether it's possible to prevent cheating without it

The entire argument is refuting the nonsense claim that all cheating can be solved serverside. You've yet to provide any proof of that, demonstrate even reasonably grounds to assume that, and dismissed the numerous real world examples and facts that show that case to be unlikely.

> Nearly every post you've made has fundamentally missed the point of the one it's replying to.

If you really believe that, then that's on you for not being clear at all. I've continually backed up my points and addressed yours, all while you constantly disingenuously claim you don't understand my point, lol.

I've outlined what the main point is above. Hopefully you won't still be confused by it.

So please, stop delaying and procrastinating, and just support your fucking claim so we can be done with this, or grow some balls and admit you were wrong, so I can be done with you.

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