This is what I don't get

>The Aisuru DDoS botnet operates as a DDoS-for-hire service with restricted clientele; operators have reportedly implemented preventive measures to avoid attacking governmental, law enforcement, military, and other national security properties. Most observed Aisuru attacks to date appear to be related to online gaming.

https://www.netscout.com/blog/asert/asert-threat-summary-ais...

So why? Like why would someone pay to take a game down? I see this all over reddit with different games but I just don't get the point. What's the benefit of taking down an online game for a couple of hours.

Mad salt. Imagine a fully grown man having a toddler tantrum. "If I can't play/win/get my way, nobody can" type mentality. It's also a method of coercion. Give me mod status or I'll DDOS your server and destroy your community.

The other half comes from sever operators ddosing their competition. There is a lot of money to be made from paid cosmetics, ranks, moderator (demi-tyrant) status, etc on custom servers.

It depends on the game, but for those with some kind of marketplace or transferable currency, I'm guessing market manipulation is one possible reason.

For other games, maybe trying to interrupt some time limited event or tournament. Going all the way down the rabbit hole, if you're not already familiar take a look at how crazy things get in a game like EVE: Online.

Then of course there are the bored trolls and/or people who feel wronged by the game's developers or other players.

Probably it has to do with all the gambling sites associated with gaming not the games itself.

Taking a competitor offline for a few hours is a lot of money in a market business I expect.

there seems to be lot of weird stuff going on with gaming casinos the recent CoffeeZilla episode comes to mind, so wouldn’t be surprised if botnets are used

They get banned for trolling, griefing, cheating, breaking rules etc. and want revenge. Every game operator has to deal with idiots like this

the ddos market has been somewhat centered around gaming for a while now, mainly to take down game server competition, or as an attempt to sell big players on "ddos protection" services.

well, gaming and Krebs's blog: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/05/krebsonsecurity-hit-with...

> So why? Like why would someone pay to take a game down?

esports gambling and winning tournaments is big business.

> During the Fortnite Championship Series finals, a pair of pro players may have utilized denial of service attacks to disadvantage contesters [1]

[1] https://fortnitetracker.com/article/1087/ddos-scandal-from-c...

I'm surprised no one has mentioned duping. Selling items and currency for real world money is big bucks and IME, server crashes reliably enable duping exploits.

Not saying that's the case in this particular incident though.

The results are very public, it's the same way IRC is often targeted. They're easy targets, thousands of users are affected and the results are immediately noticeable.

A game I work with got hit by ~10Tbps earlier this year. It's likely because someone got mad they were banned.

> So why? Like why would someone pay to take a game down?

esports gambling is big business

> So why? Like why would someone pay to take a game down? I see this all over reddit with different games but I just don't get the point. What's the benefit of taking down an online game for a couple of hours.

Most of the time crime groups are running extortion campaigns, amplification campaigns, etc. For example, if a competitor can benefit from them being down you may be able to sell that. Eventually we will probably see the invention of crowd-funded randsomware, where everyone must submit one verification can of crypto to unlock the hacked game servers.

A satisfying theory for a lot of DDoS would be extortion or protection rackets. Pay up or we will DDoS you, or pay up or 'someone else' will DDoS you.

That's enough to explain it. But if you wanted to go more full shadowy conspiracy theory, someone arranged for a protection service that just so happens to work by giving some entity cleartext surveillance over much of the internet. Perhaps as a response to HTTPS everywhere being annoying.

I'm not suggesting that's the situation, but that it's the kind of possibility to keep in mind, intellectually, and it would be consistent with history.

What is even more interesting why attack Azure? It's not possible to extort anything from Microsoft, so what's the rationale?

competitors might want to drive users to move away if they think a platform is broken

Uh I used to get DDoSed by “booter” services whenever I would login to one of my Skype accounts. The script kiddie scene is that petty. In the private server scene one guy would DDoS competing servers that way everyone would funnel to his own.

Its just toxic behavior.

Depends on How much does it cost to hire it

Gamers, am I right?

I've always imagined somebody will get pissed-off at me one day for banning them for bad behavior, or because I said something wrong online.

Most of the time its just blackmail/extortion - pay us or we do the thing.

Extortion. You got a nice little game server there. Would be a shame if anything happened to it.