Cheat detection & prevention methods in video games

Abstract

The literature review investigated what kind of and how many cheating methods are known in available research on cheating in video games as well as what anti-cheat methods are known for preventing or detecting the cheating methods. The review collected a list of both the cheating methods and the anti-cheat methods found and reviewed the most common methods of classifying cheating methods in video games.

The main results of the review were a list of 24 individual cheating methods and a list of 32 anti-cheat methods which were considered to be distinct from each other. The review also found that existing research has placed the most attention on Online Multiplayer games with a specific focus commonly on the First Person Shooter and Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game genres and less on other genres and non-multiplayer environments. The review concluded that many cheating methods covered by the review lack comprehensive coverage by the anti-cheat methods found and even some of the cheating methods with concrete anti-cheat coverage remain vulnerable in the real world with some areas such as social engineering and external cheating tools largely lacking concrete anti-cheat proposals beyond manual human moderation. The areas with the most current interest was the use of AI and machine learning for both cheating and detecting cheating. Areas most lacking research were alternative forms of competition such as video game speedrunning and as well as cheating in video game genres outside of First Person Shooter and Massively Multiplayer Online RPG genres. Limitations for the review were a lack of published sources from both the commercial anti-cheat developers and the cheating tool developers, both of which use secrecy as a part of their strategy to make their opponents' work more difficult. The review was also unable to cover all sources on cheating in video games and limited its scope primarily to sources covering cheating generally or specifically on the PC platform and only reviewed sources in the English language and available online.

The review found no commonly adopted definitions or standards for cheating in video games & the reviewed sources used a variety of names and terms to classify the same cheating methods with each source using their own classifications. The thesis therefore recommends commercial anti-cheat developers and academic researchers to work to develop and adopt common definitions classifying cheating methods. The thesis also recommends for commercial anti-cheat developers to make their research and data more available for academic research.