Now that Stop Killing Games is actually being taken seriously - maybe we need to take a look at Stop Fucking Around In Our Kernels
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?
I usually solve this issue by… just playing something else.
It sounds hard, but I assure you, nothing is impossible.
There’s about 5 games a decade that are exciting anymore even, unfortunately. I might just have to give up gaming then.
I can cite way more than 5 excellent games from this decade from the top of my head, We’re almost in 2025, so I’ll limit to games released in or after 2015:
- Factorio
- RimWorld
- Stellaris
- Fallout 4
- Overcooked 2 (and all you can eat)
- Life is Strange
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Before your eyes
- Dead Cells
- Shadow Tactics
- Cities Skylines
- The outer worlds
- Two point hospital
I can keep going, but this is just from the top of my head, there are always good games getting released, and very rarely they’re AAA.
You’re obviously looking in the wrong place for games then…
I encourage you to explore the wonderful world of indie games, and free yourself from the shackles and shitty anti-cheat implementations of the AAA/AAAA gaming industry
Baldurs Gate 3
That’s one yeah
There are tons of good games always coming out even recently, unless you only like multi-player games.
If you spend a little time on the dark alleyways of Steam, you will occasionally come up with hidden gems. The indies scene is currently thriving.
False.
Money talks.
Don’t buy the game.
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.
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.
They applaud it even.
…still not buying it, tho.
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.
Right, well they are trying to start a campaign to popularize the comment you just made. Or at least that’s my understanding
Absolute dogshit strategy. 99% of people will always buy the game so you not buying won’t matter in the slightest. Unfortunate but true.
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.
You’re not listening to what I said. I said that most people will buy the game and there is not a damn thing you can do about it. Most people are fucking idiots. You can morally decide not to support it by not buying the game, and that’s perfectly reasonable. But it won’t do fucking shit because all the idiots will still buy the game. That’s just how the world works because most people don’t give a fuck. Unless you can personally convince millions of people to change their behavior and agree with you, you not buying the game doesn’t matter.
There is a network effect to popular games.
However as more people stop buying the network effect gets weaker.Its happening visibly with the new Call of Duty. Many i know bought it and then stopped playing shortly after because much of their friends are waiting for sales now or just find the game bad.
Those people will be thinking twice before buying next year.
Exactly, every time I say ‘I’m thinking of putting up a Factorio server, you want in?’, they are significantly less likely to be playing (or paying for) the newest game that has kernel-level access. Why, because we are playing Factorio for the next few weeks together and Factorio is fun.
Factorio isn’t the only game we play, but the point is to reinforce yours. If you are playing fun game x, your friends are more likely to play x instead of something else. Even if they have no care about Kernel-Level access, the fact you do affects their buying (and playing) patterns.
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.
So do mega-corporations with more money than God, like Microsoft.
And they already said no to root-level anti-cheats.
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)
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
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.
Now that Stop Killing Games is actually being taken seriously
600k signatures to go. Link for EU citizens.
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.
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.
The point is not enough people understand it to gain any momentum
On the contrary, I think kernel level anticheat should be illegal
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.
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.
Yes
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EAC and BattlEye absolutely are kernel level on Windows.
There’s a warning on Dauntless’s store page saying that it uses EAC for kernel level anti-cheat.
Those both have a Ring 0 component, which is essentially presented as required for the crap to even work.
The argument being that you have to have that level of access for the anti-cheat software to be able to actually be able to do it’s thing, since if you just ran it with a normal user’s permission, it’d be subject to numerous ways you could have a cheat tool simply bypass it.
They’re probably not wrong about that, but doesn’t mean that we should have to essentially install a rootkit on our hardware to play online games.
I was boycotting it before it was even in the news.
Now it’s built in DRM on Windows 11. And it’s already breaking games.
https://www.techspot.com/news/105709-windows-11-24h2-update-breaks-ubisoft-games-fix.html
likely only way this is going to change is if someone starts exploiting the kernel level anticheats and causes noticeable consequences for people who dont care they have it installed. In essence, its just (hopefully) difficult to use rootkit waiting to be used anyway.
I’m late to the thread but am I understanding this correctly? The issue is gaming on a Linux or non-windows pc, right? Also, the general sentiment in this chat room is to not buy the games requiring windows, right?
Are you all high or just idiots? What cinpany is going to give a flying fuck if 1% of their customer base stops buying. 100% of all Linux gamers would have to commit to even make the 1% dent. 🤣🤣🤣
You mean like the “multi-million units sold” Linux based Steam Deck?
Not, the problem is that kernel level ACs are a security and privacy risk, a violation of what I do and what I am willing to share, and a bullshit way to enforce fair play. They already suck at detecting cheats, it is a cat and mouse game, and the mouse has always been ahead.
Next thing is they will require for me to stream my face, hands, and feet to ensure I am not cheating…
No, you’re not understanding it correctly. The issue is that kernel-level DRM is a terrible thing on Windows, the fact that it doesn’t work on Linux is also a side effect.
“Spy on me harder Daddy”
I wasn’t buying their games because they suck.
Anti-cheat was way down the list of reasons. It’s not like even on Linux that there’s a drought of games to play.
I guess they just can’t handle Team Fortress 2.
