I disagree with the premise that it doesn't matter as long as users can't tell. Say you're running a Counterstrike tournament with a 10k purse... Integrity matters there. And a smart cheater is running 'stealth' in that situation. Think a basic radar or a verrrrrry light aimbot, etc.

The problem is that traditional cheats (aimbot, wallhack, etc.) give users such a huge edge that they are multiple standard deviations from the norm on key metrics. I agree with you on that and there are anticheats that look for that exact thing.

I've also seen anticheats where flagged users have a session reviewed. EG you review a session with "cheats enabled" and try to determine whether you think the user is cheating. This works decently well in a game like CS where you can be reasonably confident over a larger sample size whether a user is playing corners correctly, etc.

The issue with probing for game world entities is that at some point, you have to resolve it in the client. EG "this is a fake player, store it in memory next to the other player entities but don't render this one on screen." This exact thing has happened in multiple games, and has worked as a temporary solution. End of the day, it ends up being a cat and mouse game. Cheat developers detect this and use the same resolution logic as the game client does. Memory addresses change, etc. and the users are blocked from using it for a few hours or a few days, but the developer patches and boom, off to the races.

These days game hacks are a huge business. Cheats often are offered as a subscription and can rank from anywhere from 10-hundreds of dollars a month. It's big money and some of the larger hack manufacturers are full blown companies which can have tens of thousands of customers. It's a huge business.

I think you're realistically left with two options. Require in-person LAN matches with hardware provided by the tournament which is tamper-resistant. Or run on a system so locked down that cheats don't exist.

Both have their own problems... In-person eliminates most of that risk but it's always possible to exploit. Running on a system which is super locked down (say, the most recent playstation) probably works, until someone has a 0day tucked away that they hoard specifically for their advantage. An unlikely scenario but with the money involved in some esports... Anything is possible.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24698335-la22cv00051...