Are the stakes not still zero? Aren't like 99.9% of players not at all competitive in any meaningful sense basically by definition? Like if Counter-Strike has 1M active players, and you are in the 99.9%-ile, you are still only in the top 1,000. Do people watch the rank 1000 players? Are they making a career out of it? What fraction of the player-base thinks they are actually competitive vs. is just playing a game?
Right, this is also my suspicion. It's all ultimately a way to psychologically manipulate people into buying more microtransactions. It's then important to always point out how silly and obvious the whole thing is. It's like if your local sports organization at the park insisted on drug testing everyone so they can try to convince you your beer league volleyball game is actually very serious and you should buy Air Jordans or fancy shorts to up your game. These people are a joke.
For some games like dota 2 cheats only make them marginally better at the game but much more frustrating to play against. The most common cheats are map hacks and instant action scripts both of which can be useless without the game knowledge for correct play. But both of these cheats make playing against them frustrating but they wouldn't rise to the top.
Again I think there’s a better way if we push through the concept of a fair game, and just focus on fun. It should be possible and accepted to block (and never match with going forward) players who are just… unfun. Annoying, poor sports, or cheaters. Heck, maybe player-curated and shared matching and blocking lists could become a thing.
Games are a social thing we do to have fun, there’s no obligation to spend your limited social free time hanging out with annoying people.
The problem is the reverse of what is being argued here. The stakes are high because of how much money these companies are making off of DLCs/in-app purchases. The game operator thus has an incentive to ensure that high value customers can't be banned by third parties. Instead of just being banned, the player is suspended 24 hours or something, and then they come back.
Came here to find this comment. It is NOT about matchmaking and/or "protecting the incomes" of competitive players AT ALL! It is solely about protecting these games' in-game shops and associated economies. The real comp scenes are all done on LAN anyway, with entirely different anti-cheat setups.
I actually think a big part of this anti-cheat push is just developers wanting their players to think something real is at stake. Yes we put a ton of effort into protecting your very important Elo score from hackers so you confidently sink hours into improving it.
If they would just let the cheaters win their way up the ranks, they could have their own little cheater lobbies and we wouldn’t have to deal with them.