this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2025
43 points (95.7% liked)

Steam

209 readers
217 users here now

A community for news and discussion about the steam video game digital distribution service

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Vacant@programming.dev
43
Anti-cheat will still be one of the biggest problems for the new Steam Machine (www.gamingonlinux.com)
submitted 1 day ago by cm0002@suppo.fi to c/steam@programming.dev
21 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Kernel-level anti-cheat feels like it's everywhere now, and will remain a thorn in Valve's side for the new Steam Machine powered by SteamOS Linux.

On Linux, there's no kernel-level mode available for anti-cheats like they would use on Windows. I know plenty of readers, and gamers across the net probably see it as a benefit due to privacy concerns, and that's fine - but it doesn't change what a lot of people want to play that can't.

This is something many bigger games simply don't want to pull away from including the likes of Call of Duty, Vanguard from Riot, EA Javelin for Battlefield and so on. While we do have some anti-cheat vendors that support Linux like Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye (and a few others), it's user-mode with no kernel-level and many developers really don't like that.

top 21 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I still don't understand the people who feel like they absolutely have to play a specific game like League of Legends or Vanguard that has kernel level anticheat. Just, don't? I get that these games are popular, but neither are the best in their genre. Dota 2 doesn't have issues on Linux. Neither does Counter Strike, or Deadlock if you really care more for the hero battler side. Your life is probably better off without Fortnite, and there's tons of competitors in the battle royale space.

I just can't find a fully unique game that has kernel-level anticheat and absolutely no competitors, yet people seem to always make a really big deal about Linux gaming being unable to support these titles like it's some kinda deathknell.

[–] ExperiencedWinter@lemmy.world 8 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

You can't imagine a situation like this?

"Hey we're going to play some League tonight, you in?"

I play games to hang out with friends, if there are games they want to play I'll probably want to be able to play those games with them.

[–] Smokeydope@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

And thats the big divider. A fundamental schism between people who use video games as a vehicle for socializing with friends vs people who play videogames for the love of the art form and enjoyment of the genre.

The "want to play with my friends" types follow the hype train. They consume games as a social product. They go from one AAA multiplayer to the next as their social groups collective interest waxes and wanes. They buy game consoles based purely off what their other friends have. They aren't that deeply invested in the 50 years of history, industry practices, or current culture trends of games. They dont care about nerd shit like privacy and dont care about always online requirements or optimization. AAA shooters, mobas, and sports games appeal to these types.

The "art form enjoyer" types are the people who grew up with this stuff and have an intrinsic interest in game industry practices. People who played hundreds of single player games to experience a story or beat a challenge. The people who care enough to notice the constant corporate commodification ofthe art into slop and the never ending plays for control over the game you paid to own or shoving microtransactions everywhere. Its the people who will put their foot down and vote with their wallet just because of shit anticheat or always online or being unoptimized UE5 garbage. Also the type of people who will give indie games made by small developers who treat the community well while providing the opportunity to run community servers.

Theres overlap but to me it seems lot of the industries anti-consumer practices are born and bread in the triple AAA " want to play with my friends" honeytraps. Those kinds of players are the most apathetic, most willing to chase hype trains, buy the newest consoles, consume the same reheated product, willing to put aside personal philosophy and bend over backwards to take the corporate cock to play a game with friends.

But like I was a teenager once during the 360/ps3 games so I have empathy. The socialite tribal monkey instincts for connection and communication are a big driver very hard to resist. Theres nothing wrong with playing games with friends but I wish it would stop being used as an put for enabling shitty products and practices. "Sorry nerds I'm a real person who wants to play with my friends normal people ain't got time to care about voting with their wallet or having an invested interest in making sure I can play the product I paid for 10 years from now with hardware I already own" is such a common undertone justifying the apathy.

[–] djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 22 hours ago

"Y'know that shit installs spyware on your computer right? You wanna play some Dota instead?"

Do you just passively accept things that your friends do, or do you actively engage in the decision making process?

[–] protogen420@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 day ago

real solution is playing single players

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 7 points 1 day ago

Arguing as if kernel level anticheat should even exist on linux. (It shouldn't). If your anticheat fails because the user has too much freedom, it probably isn't a good anticheat.

[–] lennee@lemmy.world 65 points 1 day ago (2 children)

well, im not buying ur game then

[–] Rothe@piefed.social 4 points 1 day ago

Yeah, I stopped playing online multiplayer games years ago in favour of singleplayer only, and it has been such a improvement in my enjoyment of gaming overall. The no anti cheat is just an added bonus.

[–] piyuv@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

This is the way

[–] turbowafflz@lemmy.world 40 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Client side anti-cheat is such a stupid idea anyway, it can always be bypassed and it is always going to annoy users. Just do better cheat detection server side like a sane person

[–] CMDR_Horn@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago

But then how will they collect data so they can sell it to make even more money?

[–] natecox@programming.dev 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If by “everywhere” you mean for a select genre of games. Even the games listed there are limited to multiplayer competitive FPS.

My giant library of steam games has worked remarkably well since the first steam deck release.

[–] warm@kbin.earth 3 points 1 day ago

Yeah, just don't play these games with lazy AC implementations. You aren't missing much 99% of the time.

[–] Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 1 day ago

You know what bugs me so much more than cheaters in my games? Not being able to fucking play them. Sure, cheaters are an issue, but blocking Linux obviously doesn't fix that. Like someone else said, just develop server side anticheat and add a reporting system. I understand the budgetary limitations of smaller companies, but AAA titles like BF6 have no excuse, it's just penny pinching corporate fuckheads.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Cheaters ruin games. Anti-cheat sucks for privacy, and is ineffective to a point. As long as there are tryhards willing to shell out a few $ to have a leg up on the opposition, there will always be someone willing to code a way to make it happen. Even statistic-based anti-cheat is an utter failure. Not sure what the answer is.

[–] chasteinsect@programming.dev 1 points 9 hours ago

You just have to make it expensive / hard enough to cheat that most people don't bother.

I understand peoples distrust in kernel level anti-cheats and why they suck, that being said, back when I still played multiplayer games Valorant (that has a kernel level anti cheat) was so much ahead of CSGO that it was not even a comparison. I don't know whether it was due to CSGO's anti cheat being bad or Valorants being good.

When you have to spend 50 eur / month to cheat most people don't and that's good enough for the casual player base. Not sure what the case now is with CS2 and other online games in general.

[–] Routhinator@startrek.website 2 points 1 day ago

Anticheat can go to hell and die with windows.

[–] thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Can someone smarter than me explain why another ring 0 program couldn’t just modify the kernal level anti cheat or some sort of modded kernal? Feels like a game of cat and mouse. What’s next only gaming under a anti cheat hypervisor?

[–] jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

Devs can decide their games don't have a place in the gaming scene if they want, I suppose.

[–] Baggie@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 day ago

Frustrating as fuck that when we were allowed to host community servers it was a non issue. They changed the rules, and are now whining about it.

[–] kaidelorenzo@lemmy.today -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I wonder if anyone at Valve is working on bringing trusted boot into mainstream Linux desktop usage. I'm pretty sure that's the core hurdle that keeps game developer's wary of the anti-cheat situation on Linux.

But it does open the can of worms of making it easy for apps/games to only work on specific Linux systems. We see that with how GrapheneOS has essentially the same verified boot functionality as "normal" Google Android but that doesn't actually mean any apps that want verified boot actual work on GrapheneOS.

Maybe if Valve creates a consortium of Steam verified boot certified distros. Then Valve could require that games that publish on Steam with verified boot requirements have to support any distro in the consortium. That seems like it would likely prevent the issue. The core issue being that you don't want to make it so easy for developers to prevent their game from running on certain devices that they just turn it on just because "why not?". The worry is losing games that might have supported Linux dropping support for all Linux except SteamOS.

We sort of have that now with secure boot in a way. Microsoft makes it so that other OS developers can boot on the vast majority of OEM Windows computers without disabling secure boot.

https://0pointer.net/blog/brave-new-trusted-boot-world.html

https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-guide

https://docs.siderolabs.com/talos/v1.11/platform-specific-installations/bare-metal-platforms/secureboot#disk-encryption-with-tpm