The Daily Populous Friday November 1st, 2024 night edition
Authored by pcgamer.com and submitted by LarryFromNYC

Kernel mode anticheat software is something of a divisive topic. Many players believe it negatively impacts their games' performance and could potentially compromise their system's security; but many players also want something done about all the unscrupulous players, and broadly speaking, kernel-level anticheat is the most effective way to keep things clean. It is, as they say, a conundrum.

A new addition to Steam won't change any of the above, but it will at least make it easier for people to know what's going on and react accordingly: A field on Steam store pages will now enable developers to clearly indicate what sort of anticheat software their games are using, and in the case of kernel mode anticheat, will require that disclosure.

"We've heard from more and more developers recently that they're looking for the right way to share anti-cheat information about their game with players," Valve wrote. "At the same time, players have been requesting more transparency around the anti-cheat services used in games, as well as the existence of any additional software that will be installed within the game."

Any new games being added to Steam that install a client-side kernel mode anticheat will be required to fill out the new field, and Valve said it will be going through its old games and contacting developers and publishers whose games fall into that category to ensure they update their store pages accordingly.

Games with client or server-based anticheat that is not kernel based will not be required to fill out the field, "but we generally think that any game that makes use of anti-cheat technology would benefit from letting players know," Valve said.

You can see the change on the Counter-Strike 2 Steam page, which now has a field indicating the presence of Valve Anti-Cheat software:

The early response to the change is quite positive (although a few comments seem more focused on calling out the inherent evils of kernel mode software than on the new notification system itself), which is not entirely surprising. People have been unhappy about kernel mode anticheat for years. Riot's Vanguard software caused controversy when it went live in 2020, as did Doom Eternal around the same time. Activision tried to dodge the bullet when it announced the Ricochet kernel mode anticheat for Call of Duty games in 2021, promising it will only operate when Warzone is running, a maneuver that met with limited success; EA jumped into the fray with the same promise in 2023. As we noted earlier this year, kernel mode anticheat isn't going anywhere , but at least now you'll know when it's around.

Odin_69 on October 31st, 2024 at 06:01 UTC »

It's a nice change to the storefront with relevant information people might want when deciding to purchase a game. Anyone could find this information looking up whatever game they were thinking to purchase, but it's great that valve gives the developers a specific location to put it directly on the store page.

MachFiveFalcon on October 31st, 2024 at 04:36 UTC »

Great new for Linux users such as Steam Deck owners.

LarryFromNYC on October 31st, 2024 at 04:36 UTC »

Part of the reason Doom Eternal's anti-cheat was a scandal wasn't just the anti-cheat factor, it was that it was added post launch to a game that was predominantly single player. Kernel level anti-cheat has pretty high level permissions, and if only a small portion of the user base is going to even try the multiplayer, and the game gets something after launch that may have dissuaded sales for the single player portion given it was implemented in a way that impacted all players.

Now, I have no problem with anti-cheat. I don't love kernel level anti-cheat, but most of the time there haven't been major credible live environment issues related to it. But there is a difference between agreeing to use anti-cheat for a multiplayer game as part of being part of a multiplayer game or using a new (at the time) anti-cheat with little public testing that runs when you play a single player game you bought months earlier without expecting to have a kernel level anti-cheat running all the time.

Even if it was tied to a separate multiplayer executable that would be fine, but running on the single player game meant if Denuvo ever dropped the ball (yes, that Denuvo) and, say, had a malicious actor hijack their anti-cheat to download malicious files onto systems running the anti-cheat, well, you're exposed to all of the risks without any of the rewards (supposedly cheater free multiplayer).