I haven't really been personally affected by it before - I don't play any competitive multiplayer games at all. But my wife had her brother over, and he's significantly younger than us. So he wanted to play FortNite and GTA V, knowing I have a gaming PC. FortNite is immediately out of the question, it'll never work on my computer. Okay, so I got GTA V running and it was fun for a while, but it turns out all of those really cool cars only exist in Online. But oh look, now they've added BattlEye and I can no longer get online.

While this seems like a trivial issue (Just buy a third SSD for Windows and dual boot), it's really not. Even if I wanted to install Windows ever again, I do NOT want random 3rd party kernel modules in there. Anyone remember the whole CrowdStrike fiasco? I do NOT want to wake up to my computer not booting up because some idiot decided to push a shitty update to their kernel module that makes the kernel itself shit the bed. And while Microsoft fucks up plenty, at least they're a corporation with a reputation to uphold, and I believe they even have a QA team or 2. CrowdStrike was unheard of outside of the corporate world before the ordeal and tbh nobody has ever heard of it afterwards again.

So I think this would be a good angle to push. That we should be careful about what code runs in our OS kernels, for security and stability reasons. Obviously it'd be impossible to just blanket ban 3rd party kernel modules to any OS. However, maybe here in the EU at least we could get them to consider a rule that any software that includes a component running in the OS kernel, MUST justify how that part is necessary for the software to function in the best possible way for the user of the computer the software is running on. E.g I expect a hardware driver to have a kernel module, and I can see how security software needs to have a kernel module, but I do NOT see how a video game needs to have an anti cheat with a kernel module. How does that benefit me, the customer paying to be able to play said video game?

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[–] GhiLA@sh.itjust.works 62 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (9 children)

I usually solve this issue by... just playing something else.

It sounds hard, but I assure you, nothing is impossible.

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[–] PushButton@lemmy.world 52 points 6 days ago (5 children)

Money talks.

Don't buy the game.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 25 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This doesn't work. It will never work. You can't shame conscious consumers into voting with their wallets while the other 99% keeps buying the bad practices.

Thing is, if nobody on Lemmy, and literally nobody in general who cares about anticheat, buys GTA 6, you know what effect that would have on the company's bottom line? None, they'll make record profits.

[–] Maalus@lemmy.world 19 points 6 days ago (2 children)

So now you try to convince the 99% of players that are buying the bad practices, that a magic (to them) program that prevents cheaters is bad (since "has too much access" doesn't really explain anything). They don't care and won't care.

[–] InFerNo@lemmy.ml 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

They applaud it even.

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[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 6 points 6 days ago

Exactly.

It's like promoting Linux to people: Why would I care that my operating system is open source? Or free for that matter if I pirate it anyway?

Some people never will care.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 17 points 6 days ago

Right, well they are trying to start a campaign to popularize the comment you just made. Or at least that's my understanding

[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Absolute dogshit strategy. 99% of people will always buy the game so you not buying won't matter in the slightest. Unfortunate but true.

[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

Why would they listen to your personal complaint if you, singular, are going to buy it anyway? Your voice only matters to a company if it means you won't buy their product otherwise. Don't buy the game, then tell them why you didn't.

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[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 8 points 6 days ago

Money mumbles. Don’t buy the game, and also actively notify the company of your decision and why. Twitter, feedback form, steam review, whatever channel lets you get that message across.

[–] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 6 days ago

So do mega-corporations with more money than God, like Microsoft.

And they already said no to root-level anti-cheats.

[–] Maestro@fedia.io 30 points 6 days ago (1 children)

There us no need. CrowdStrike was such a disaster for Microsoft that they are already on the path to locking down the kernel. Noboby but MS will have kernel access eventually. Give it a few years (and 1-2 Windows versions)

[–] Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 6 days ago

Apple has already done the same with macOS 10.15 Catalina in 2019. No more kernel extensions = much better kernel-level security

This will become the industry standard

[–] Inucune@lemmy.world 24 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This will take a rogue agent to send malware or otherwise brick all machines by kernel injection. The crowd strike event poked a hole in the dam. This needs a full exploit to get major traction beyond game studios moving to the next kernel level drm/exploit engine.

[–] Amir@lemmy.ml 9 points 6 days ago

https://www.pcgamer.com/ransomware-abuses-genshin-impacts-kernel-mode-anti-cheat-to-bypass-antivirus-protection/

[–] uis@lemm.ee 23 points 6 days ago

Now that Stop Killing Games is actually being taken seriously

600k signatures to go. Link for EU citizens.

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 23 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Arguing that buying something means you own it is much more digestible for the general public. Arguing that the video game codes run slightly different on your machine than you would like is esoteric and a non-starter. This is not a matter for the government, just don’t buy shitty games. Literally no game is required to be bought.

[–] uis@lemm.ee 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This is not a matter for the government, just don’t buy shitty games.

This IS a matter for the goverment. "just don’t buy shitty X" is "just use magic" argument.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 8 points 6 days ago

The point is not enough people understand it to gain any momentum

[–] noba_cmdr@reddthat.com 7 points 5 days ago

On the contrary, I think kernel level anticheat should be illegal

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 6 points 5 days ago

On areweanticheatyet.com it seems like the percentage of denied/broken keeps getting higher and higher :(

I guess it makes sense, new games come out with anticheat, and rarely do new games come out without anticheat.

[–] CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

While this seems like a trivial issue (Just buy a third SSD for Windows and dual boot)

That's not trivial at all. Don't let anyone let you think otherwise.

[–] TootSweet@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

The ship named "software does shit I don't like on my own hardware" sailed the day proprietary software became a thing.

Mind you, it's scary how many people applaud kernel-level anticheat. "This game was just ruined by hackers until they added kernel-level anticheat. Now it's great again!"

How would a campaign against kernel-level anticheat "succeed" exactly? More awareness? More people boycotting kernel-level anticheat? Laws prohibiting the practice?

Like, obviously I'm never running any software that involves kernel-level anticheat, but I'm a Gentoo neckbeard with an EFF-approved tinfoil hat surgically attached to my scalp.

(Hell, I think it would be great if most of the games out there had cheater and bot servers where it was encouraged to run your cheat tools and/or bots. If they allowed that but just kept it separate from non-tool/non-bot players, that'd be a fantastic way to get kids more interested in STEM.)

(Also, if anyone made and sold a boardgame that made players want to cheat (in a bug-not-feature kind of way), it would get negative reviews and no one would buy it. In a way, kernel-level anticheat can almost be considered a type of "externality". The game studio, rather than going to the trouble to tune their game to make cheating less appealing, they break their users' computers and invade their privacy. And the game studio then rakes in more money as a result.)

But how would we get through to normie 12-year-olds who just want to play Valorant and not have their face constantly rubbed in the dirt by "hackers"?

[–] reksas@sopuli.xyz 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

its never too late to start resisting something. Though it is too late if no one cares to do anything about it, not even yourself.

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[–] pivot_root@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago

But how would we get through to normie 12-year-olds who just want to play Valorant and not have their face constantly rubbed in the dirt by "hackers"?

I think it would be good for them to be told the truth: you aren't being killed by hackers, you just suck.

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