Should VALVe take down those cheating websites?

[Francis • LUL]

I don't sure about cheating in online games is a bad thing. But should VALVe issues a Take down notice to cheating websites so can reduce cheaters in our gaming community?

[Crystal Sharrd]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Spawn of Totoro:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย sonic65101:

I assumed that cheats for online multiplayer games would violate the same laws hacking does, due to the fraudulent nature of such cheats.

Hacking would involve accessing the servers. Cheats modify the game files, typically in memory. Cheats are as illegal as modding a game is, hence why it is a TOS/SSA violation and not a legal one.

Some countries have laws against cheats (Korea I think, but am not 100% sure) but they are very few.

Japan and China I know for sure outlaw cheats. Japan even outlaws them for singleplayer games, which is overkill if you ask me.

[Spawn of Totoro]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย sonic65101:

Japan and China I know for sure outlaw cheats. Japan even outlaws them for singleplayer games, which is overkill if you ask me.

And if those making and selling cheats do not live in those countries, then there is no legal actions that can be taken.

[Judgmental Amaterasu]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Hero of Kenosha:

Some of the previous popular ones have been taken down, or threatened legally, however I don't know if that's just a ploy to squeeze more money from people or not.

For single player offline games, or games that nobody should care if anyone cheats in, people used to put up tables/trainers for free, and now there's this big move in recent years to monetize this. Monetizing it opens up the doors for legal action against you as well. And not only that but the ones monetizing cheats have been going after the ones who put up free stuff that competes with them. So, most of the legal action taken against people making cheats is honestly by greedier cheaters trying to monetize it.

I support someone going after the ones looking to monetize cheating using whatever legal means possible. I hope they all get taken down.

W
hen one of those gets taken down they just rebrand and create a new site.

[Crashed]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Spawn of Totoro:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย sonic65101:

I assumed that cheats for online multiplayer games would violate the same laws hacking does, due to the fraudulent nature of such cheats.

Hacking would involve accessing the servers. Cheats modify the game files, typically in memory. Cheats are as illegal as modding a game is, hence why it is a TOS/SSA violation and not a legal one.

Some countries have laws against cheats (Korea I think, but am not 100% sure) but they are very few.

Couldn't online cheats run into violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?

[Kiddiec͕̤̱͋̿͑͠at 🃏]

... cheating ...

... criminal ...

... legal actions ...

On the note of legal actions, this is really bad for PR anyways, even when it is possible to bring a case.

Legal action should generally only be taken as a response to OTHER legal actions taken against the person responding, OR as a response to :
- a violated contract
- a personal injury on property of another or on company time
- an illness caused by use of a product
- an illness caused by unsafe conditions in the organization of question
- some form of malpractice, such as medical or legal malpractice
- copyright, trademark, or patent violations
- theft, destruction, or damage of personal property
- civil rights violations
- wrongful death suit (generally brought by a family member)

...and I may be forgetting some instances but for the most part that is the extent of it.

Cheating in an online game does not generally qualify - perhaps in competitions with prizes or tournaments but most online multiplayer games don't fall under that category of "fraudulent gains" (type of theft), since there's no monetary value to the rank points or whatever is being assigned / awarded for winning.

As a publisher or developer...
Good luck making money off of your online games (in specific regions of the world anyways) if you make everyone too scared of receiving a mandatory court summons, under threat of arrest (or in some regions of the world, just straight-up getting arrested), & possibly losing their livelihood just because they got ACCUSED (perhaps not even accurately so) of being a cheater in a game that they just wanted to relax with after work.

Some small developers (on Steam) have done that in the past with people who left reviews recommending against games & then Valve terminated their publishing contract. So, that's a bit different than going after cheat-providers, which are obviously big(ger) fish and generally not just someone who wanted to play a game after work but even then... companies, publishers, & developers that get too heavy-handed with filing legal actions / litigation, which then gets served, can wind up doing a lot more harm to their business out of the fear that such actions can inspire, rather than if they'd just left well enough alone or just implemented code on their servers to sanitize the data being received from the gaming clients.

Generally civil suits against individuals, for online statements or cheating in games (as a player), won't happen because only a lawyer who is what one would call a "pettifogger" would ever take such a case. While there's no shortage of those in the world, the general rule about being a shark is that... sharks eat (or get eaten by) other sharks.


TL;DR : This is an issue that the developers should be handling via input-sanitizaton, rather than litigation.

[[?]legit]

It would be smarter if games studios invested more resources in anti cheat solutions. Even if there can't be a perfect anti cheat, they should at least neutralize the public accessible cheats.

[[?]legit]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Spawn of Totoro:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย sonic65101:

I assumed that cheats for online multiplayer games would violate the same laws hacking does, due to the fraudulent nature of such cheats.

Hacking would involve accessing the servers. Cheats modify the game files, typically in memory. Cheats are as illegal as modding a game is, hence why it is a TOS/SSA violation and not a legal one.

Some countries have laws against cheats (Korea I think, but am not 100% sure) but they are very few.

It would at least fall under copyright infringement, because tampering around with software is not allowed, especially distributing modifications for own monetary gain, which is what cheat providers do, is something which you can get sued for, DMCA is one legal step, maybe there are more.

But since most hackers are experts in their field and of course smart enough to disguise their identity, it becomes difficult to bring up legal actions against them.

[JVC]

OP: Who is going to pay for those lawsuits, you're proposing? Lawyers don't work for free.

[Spawn of Totoro]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Legit:

It would at least fall under copyright infringement, because tampering around with software is not allowed, especially distributing modifications for own monetary gain, which is what cheat providers do, is something which you can get sued for, DMCA is one legal step, maybe there are more.

But since most hackers are experts in their field and of course smart enough to disguise their identity, it becomes difficult to bring up legal actions against them.

As those who mod games also do, hence why it is a civil matter, not a criminal one.

Cheats tend to modify what is in memory, not the files directly on the computer, so it could be said that nothing is being modified.

[[?]legit]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Spawn of Totoro:

Cheats tend to modify what is in memory, not the files directly on the computer, so it could be said that nothing is being modified.

That still counts though. Otherwise anti cheats would not have any right to ban people. 'Modifying' is not limited to changing the files of the program, any modification that interferes or changes the program from its original state is not allowed. And modifying what's in memory can have a heavy impact on a program's behavior, if that happens then it's done on purpose and proves a malicious intent.

But there's a big difference between someone who is using cheats, and someone who is selling and distributing cheats.

The people behind popular cheating sites would sit in court and face charges the moment their anonymity falls. Not only do they distribute something they have no right to, they also cause a significant damage to the original software and brand.

On the other hand, nobody will ever get punished more than getting banned in that game when cheating.

[captainwiseass]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Legit:

The people behind popular cheating sites would sit in court and face charges the moment their anonymity falls.

For what? What's the criminal offense, in any jurisdiction? Or, if a civil matter, what's the actionable tort?

Just because they're jerks doesn't mean they're breaking the law.

[Sleepy Yoshi]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย captainwiseass:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Legit:

The people behind popular cheating sites would sit in court and face charges the moment their anonymity falls.

For what? What's the criminal offense, in any jurisdiction? Or, if a civil matter, what's the actionable tort?

Just because they're jerks doesn't mean they're breaking the law.

Breach of contract, inducing breach of contract, copyright infringement and potentially trademark infringement if they use the game's logo anywhere.

These are just a few of the claims I've seen in the last 5-10 years when studio's have sued sites that distribute and sell cheats.

[Halo]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย sonic65101:

Which is why you arrest the criminals running the site.

You obviously havent had much to do with enforcement of any kind.

Protip - the less you care about the law the less it can do to you.

Sadly the myth of the legal system and its ramifications keeps the majority of good citizens in line, but try using it on people below a certain level and it fails 100%.

Doesn't work on the rich either.

[Taebrythn]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Francis:

I don't sure about cheating in online games is a bad thing. But should VALVe issues a Take down notice to cheating websites so can reduce cheaters in our gaming community?

what you expect to happen is beyond their power and control. lol. they can only do what is in Steam and their games. if there is stuff in other games that is not theirs what do you expect Steam to do? they don't have power outside Steam to go and simply take down something.

[crunchyfrog]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย sonic65101:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Damp Wizard Sleeve:

You know what happens when 1 site gets taken down? They spend 99 cents and make another one.

Which is why you arrest the criminals running the site.

It doesn't work like this at all in reality.

Let's assume just flat out cheating in game were illegal (it isn't except to certain extents in South Korea), just for argument's sake.

Now, Valve find out someone is operating a site where they sell cheats for CSGO. They subpeona a request for the actual real name of the person paying for the web page, and they discover it's some guy in Germany.

Now what do you think happens then?

NOTHING. Because Valve would have to spend an awful lot tracking down some lawyer in Germany who has jusridiction to take this matter on. You can imagine the difficulties involved with just communicating with a foreign lawyer based on time zones alone. If you've ever dealt with a solicitor you'll know it takes an age anyway. Months to get anything done, because the legal process is slow.

Now, even assuming miracles did happen and Valve wanted to pursue this, get a German solicitor, and take all the steps necessary, which will take months of work, they finally isssue a summons for him to appear in court.

What are the chances of the guy not being at that address, as it's either a bogus address or name, or he's moved on? Pretty damned high.

At that point they have nowhere to go.

But the main reason here is not only the costs, the jurisdiction and all the other problems, but the simple fact that such a person can set up a new site within minutes, yet it takes MONTHS to actually take legal action - can you see the obvious massive problem there?