This was never an issue 20 years ago when we had 64 player servers, but the 64 player servers also generally had a few people online with referee access to kick/ban people at any given time. That seemed like it worked well to me.

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ThatPlayer 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It was still an issue enough that some developers made BattlEye for anti-cheat 20 years ago for Battlefield games. It's still one of the more popular anticheats today.

Other games did similarly. Quake 3 Arena added Punkbuster in a patch. Competitive 3rd party Starcraft 1 server ICCUP had an "anti-hack client" as a requirement.

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sylens 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's really the paradigm shift - communities were self-organizing and self-moderating before. Now game publishers want to control all aspects of the online experience so they can sell you content and skins, so that means matchmaking and it means they have to shoulder the moderation burden.

	▲	eru 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The barrier to entry has also dropped a lot and the market has broadened. It's a bit like complaining that these days people just want to watch TV, instead of writing and performing their own plays.

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theshackleford 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Some real rose tinted glasses here.