Call of Duty's Anti-Cheat Will Require TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot for PC Players (gamespot.com) 105
Activision will require PC players of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 to enable Trusted Platform Module 2.0 and Windows Secure Boot when the game launches later this year. The company begins testing these anti-cheat measures with Black Ops 6's Season 5 on Thursday without enforcement.
TPM 2.0 verifies untampered boot processes while Secure Boot ensures Windows loads only trusted software at startup. Both features perform checks during system and game startup but remain inactive during gameplay. Activision has also pursued legal action against 22 individuals who developed and sold cheats.
TPM 2.0 verifies untampered boot processes while Secure Boot ensures Windows loads only trusted software at startup. Both features perform checks during system and game startup but remain inactive during gameplay. Activision has also pursued legal action against 22 individuals who developed and sold cheats.
Microsoft's Palladium is here (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft's Palladium is here (Score:5, Insightful)
If you blame the cheaters for DRM that uses the TPM, you follow the narrative of the companies. Blame Activision. Anti-Cheat should be done server-side, if you lock down the player's PC you're doing it wrong. You can't justify "We need to take your rights away because of cheaters" by blaming the cheater, because that's not a problem that is worth the restrictions.
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Do any competitive type FPS games use all server side calculations? I could be aging myself but usually there was the issue of latency that didn't really jibe with twitchy multiplayer style gameplay. MMO's have all server side calculations but I was always under the impression that the compensation for latency was the reason so many of those games had a floaty kinda turn based combat feel.
I definitely could be wrong on this since I agree that would be preferable but then I have to ask why aren't they all
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The reason they didn't just go with handing out the dedicated server program like they traditionally did, was due to profit potential. Allowing players to run their own servers fully independent of the publisher meant th
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Thanks but that doesn't really answer my question, nothing about what I am asking has to do with dedicated servers or self hosting servers back in the day.
Also cost can't be the only thing. Like if Valve could eliminate all CS:GO cheating by running dedicated match servers instead of VAC... I dunno, I'm gonna have to see some evidence to support this theory.
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"Do any competitive type FPS games use all server side calculations?" :)
Only the ones that don't mind being slow.
It means the server calculating how much of the environment to each player, because sending too little and weird physics starts happening and sending too much lets a player with a hacked client look through walls.
Re: Microsoft's Palladium is here (Score:4, Interesting)
There is no issue with latency in detection of cheating on the server side, unless you insist on stopping it before it happens. That would be nice as it would prevent cheating, but it is not necessary. As long as you are requiring accounts, then it's good enough to detect it after it happens and ban those accounts. If cheaters had to buy another copy after every time they cheated, it would drive them out of the game.
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I used to run a number of Counter Strike 1.6 servers a loooong time ago. Catching cheaters was stupidly easy.
I had a plugin monitoring where the gun was pointing at all times. Cheats that tracked through walls were obvious; however, not all cheats did that. Ultimately, it was the accuracy that gave it away. Thankfully, I had some of the top players at the time playing on my servers, so I could tune the accuracy detection to where human review would be activated for proper analysis on less than perfect, but
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Imagine a situation where players A and B both legitimate headshot each other from their own perspectives, but in the latency time, they both moved out of the other's crosshairs. The server does some validation checks, to determine that each side's story is feasible, and in our example, no-one is cheating.
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The problem is that the publishers don't care about actual cheating unless it affects their bottom line. From their perspective, you don't lock down the player's PC because of cheaters. You do it to ensure compliance with your demands, and have a get out of jail free card (The DMCA's or Equivalent's anti-circumvention clauses) when the player does something you dislike. The cheaters actually wind up paying quite a bit to the publishers. Mainly because the lack of alternative servers mean
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Blame Activision. Anti-Cheat should be done server-side,
Thanks for showing you've got no clue as to how game development, and specifically how net-code works. This was tried many times, and has failed many times. The games that handle all visual aspects to the point where cheating isn't possible server side are universally unplayable lag-fests. It is a necessity that part of the game is loaded to the client that exists beyond just the minimum required to render a picture on the screen.
Think of something as simple as hit detection. How would you feel shooting som
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It is a necessity that part of the game is loaded to the client that exists beyond just the minimum required to render a picture on the screen.
Record player actions. Use randomly-selected other players' systems (from a pool of those who are playing on the same map) to verify those actions which you flag as suspicious during times when they are waiting for other players to join a match or similar.
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Record player actions.
So rely on the client to tell you the player took an action is step one? Congrats, you've not avoided client side cheating.
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So rely on the client to tell you the player took an action is step one? Congrats, you've not avoided client side cheating.
You record the actions of the player which were sent to the server. How is this confusing to you?
I'll be that old man talking about back in the day (Score:2)
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How would you feel shooting someone only for the bullet to be registered as never fired because actually you were dead 100ms earlier but didn't know about it yet because the server was still processing hit boxes and hasn't managed to let you know you were dead yet
That's annoying, but it's a problem of lag. It happens in FPS games that calculate things on the client, too.
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Your server-side detection does not need to be real-time. You show the cheater (and possible the cheated person) the hit, then you detect its wrong and undo it. If someone is cheating, a glitch that someone un-dies is a resolution that works for everyone involved. You can count the occurrences and ban the player as soon as you're sure its no false positive.
On the other hand, it is just wrong from the security point of view to control if someone is cheating on the cheater's system. Of course you need stupid
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You show the cheater (and possible the cheated person) the hit, then you detect its wrong and undo it.
How? You've just introduced a lot of additional lag that makes the game unplayable and caused outrage among users who think they were cheated out of a perfectly good hit, all the while implementing a cheating detection system that doesn't detect a whole category of potential cheating systems.
This is not a server side issue to solve. You can't solve cheating on a game server any more than you can solve cheating by just grading exams. Many cheaters can only be caught in the actual act of implementing cheats o
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I may add that even if the entire game were hosted in the cloud and streamed, or played on a closed system like a console, that people could still cheat client side with image / audio analysis, key / mouse spammers and so on
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Server side has been tried but it doesn't work very well and is prone to false positives. Players who are very good get accused of using aim-bots or seeing through walls. Have a look at this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Pretty difficult to tell that apart from an aim-bot just by looking at the mouse movements, accuracy, speed and so on.
There are cheat systems that take the HDMI video output, and feed back in fake mouse movements to auto-aim. Detecting those locally is hard enough.
Every few years so
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This can all be traced back to marketing companies doing shitty and underhanded things on the Internet. The tech bros saw the fortunes to be had by doing the same thing. The Internet was supposed to be great and wonderful ... a benefit to mankind. So much for that.
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Slashdot users made a big deal out of it over 20 years ago but we got it, along with age and id verification plus the requirement to pay for phone service to verify your id on the internet. Even Slashdot is in the game now since new Slashdot accounts have to be approved by staff. I hope you feel safe and woolly now sheep, because the wolves (spammers, cheaters and scammers) ruined it for the rest of us.
And it's too late.
My current gaming boxen is coming up to 5 years old, so I'm using Man Maths to justify building a new one early in the new year. With the new boxen I have two emphasis, 1. at least 4 M2 slots as that seems to be where cheap storage is going and 2. Linux compatibility. Most, if not all of my current steam Library is gold on Linux and/or Steam Deck. So that just leaves the games I have on GOG and my ancient non-steam games. Steams compatbility layer seems pretty good so that means my next
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Re:"inactive during gameplay" (Score:5, Informative)
Windows doesn't have TSRs. This isn't MS-DOS;.
Every TPM has a unique endorsement key. Requiring a TPM allows them to ban your hardware if you cheat. That means you'll be buying a new motherboard or a new TPM module if you get banned and want to play again. In addition, having secure boot enabled disables debug mode which means you can't load unsigned kernel mode drivers.
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vTPM?
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I wager it also requires an endorsement certificate associated with a 'trusted' vendor, and thus swtpm would probably fail to pass their criteria...
But I don't know for sure.
qemu / esxi / etc can't realy be locked out bit an (Score:2)
qemu / esxi / etc can't really be locked out bit anit trust issues. Also people to rent remote gameing VM's
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Sure they can. If they say 'no virtualization allowed', that's not really anti-trust since all virtualization is blocked. They could only allow Nuvoton, Intel, Amd, Infineon, STMicro and pretty much cover the gamut of 'real' TPMs and be healthy competition.
To the extent industry does the whole remote streaming from gaming datacenters, you can wager that the providers can get special arrangements, such as getting *their* swtpm to have an endorsement cert that is trusted. So maybe you have an 'xbox live' TP
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and that can lead to anti trust issue if only some virtualization providers are allowed. And what if they also say must be on hyper v?
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vTPM?
Quite, it won't be long before someone figures out how to fake it.
The answer to cheating has always been a moderated server with a decent mod. Cheating is a social problem rather than a technological one, so it requires a social solution.
Companies like EA, Take2, et al. won't care that this will be broken in short order as they don't really care about supporting a game beyond the time it takes to release the next iteration.
Consoles (Score:3, Insightful)
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Many consoles get hacked and when they do there goes your protections. Your $xx.xx/Month multiplayer fees are still required but until they release a new system that requires hacking to start all over again, you get cheaters just like on PC.
Physically handicapped players who need custom controllers to be able to play at all can get locked out simply because the manufacturers refuse to make the needed hardware. So that limits the number of potential players right o
Re: Consoles (Score:2)
"Physically handicapped players who need custom controllers to be able to play at all can get locked out simply because the manufacturers refuse to make the needed hardware."
It's generally pretty easy to connect your own controls to the official controller's PCB, Don't the people who make such controllers know how to do that?
More games will start requiring this to just run (Score:1)
More games will start requiring this because publishers are very protective of their games and probably don't want people modding them because it means content they don't get to monetize. They will start having in-game mod shops like Bethesda does and then shut out any other type of modifications, under the guise of trying to protect the user and protect their IP.
Called it ever since TPM 2.0 became a requirement
Re: More games will start requiring this to just r (Score:3)
I don't have to play these games. But it is likely for any game that is competative. It would be like going down to your local basketball court to play a 2v2 game and having to get a drug test. Might happen if it ever gets easy enough to do a drug test because nobody likes cheaters.
It's happening to noncompetitive games (Score:1)
Games bought on the Microsoft Store are already protected in a way where you can't use third party mods. They are going to want to use TPM and Secure Boot to lock it up further. The next Xbox will be Win32 based and allow Steam and other stores to run, there will be no more Xbox SDK. I assume Microsoft will want to lock up 3rd party games the way they do on console. They likely hope that 3rd parties will want this too and shift away from Steam and prioritize the Microsoft Store.
Weaponization of security software (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the weaponization of security software against the owner of the machine that we have all said was coming. Security is nice, but security that works against the wishes of the owner of the machine is exactly the opposite of that and is, by definition, malware.
Re:Weaponization of security software (Score:4, Insightful)
the linux server useage / ESXI / VM on Bare-metal (Score:2)
the linux server useage / ESXI / VM HOSTS on Bare-metal. Must of really derailed MS pushing more TPM level lockdown.
corps may not like M$ having control over what software that linux servers run.
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Yes, but TPM was never for security. It did not start as security, and it has never provided any security benefits for home machines. It has always been about lockdown, which is for DRM and corp security.
Wrong. it is entirely all about security. The reason why it is not security for YOU is that YOU are not given access to the keys. It is still all about security... just not yours, because of the key access.
Ever wondered why Win11 requires a TPM? (Score:4, Insightful)
Windows doesn't even need TPM 2.0 to run, but Microsoft paved the way to better DRM. In the 2000s people started to warn against TCPA / NGSCB / TCG, and when people stopped to care the industry giants specified secure boot. Android devices are already marketed as "widevine high security ready" meaning that you get 4K Netflix on them what requires a trusted platform module. Netflix on Windows does the same. Now computer games follow.
Keep your eyes open, the next thing the TCPA planned were traceable documents. I bet there are many companies who give an arm and a leg if they can find the whistleblower who leaked an internal document. Expect formats that can only be opened on a verified device by a signed app if their checksum is intact. And of course, the certified document reader can send home which user opened which document. Block the connection and it won't open the document.
Re:Ever wondered why Win11 requires a TPM? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm in my early 40's.. I'm glad I was around to experience the early days of the internet, where computing was a fairly libertarian, wild west type environment. (libertarianism is okay in this arena, politics.. not so much) But freedom of expression, freedom of speech, was actually realized for the masses. Albeit for a vanishingly short period of time.
But of course things started going south as soon as money got involved. First with obnoxious advertisements, then monetizing everything, and of course the control freaks striving for censorship under the guise of 'but terrorists/save the children/misinfo' et al.
The article is about some dumb copy/paste franchise that demands privacy invasion as a means to combat these nebulous cheaters (who will of course outsmart whatever ridiculously invasive measures dev's can conjure up, within a week or two.), but the writing is on the wall. Sure you can (and should) just not buy this cunty bullshit -- but it doesn't matter. It'll just become the new norm across the board, and increasingly hard to vote against with your wallet.
I hate to admit it, but Stallman was right all along. And I'm glad (or at least hopeful?) that I'll be dead and in the ground before this vile, top down control mindset obliterates a very special time and place in history.
Re:Ever wondered why Win11 requires a TPM? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, Stallman sounds extremist, but he's only two steps ahead of what's to come. And the problem is, that even the Stallman niches to use your computer unrestricted are becoming smaller. What use has GNU/Linux when you can't open your files because it has no valid trust chain to one of the preinstalled trust anchors?
And with the web integrity framework Google already tried to allow websites to restrict what browser you can use. Expect that stuff to come back with a new name. First they will say banking websites want to ensure you're not using a malware browser. Then they will provide some API for websites to disallow extensions (again, an extension could steal your banking data!) and the websites verify your browser to be sure you don't fake the API response.
And then you'll see the websites that won't work if you have an adblocker installed. And with a web locked down to trusted browsers you can kiss your privacy extensions goodbye as well, if you want to see the content, because ads without tracking are worth less than ads that know who you are.
Re:Ever wondered why Win11 requires a TPM? (Score:4, Informative)
It's called Web Environment Integrity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And as you see in the article, it is already coming back on Android.
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Yup, exactly. It's more than a bit alarming. I use a HOSTS file to block a few ad networks, and already I've run into issues when trying to pay bills, where the ad network/tracking cuntery is blocked, so the entire site shits itself. Then, the only way to pay my bill is to either figure out which entry to allow, or pay by check. Of course for my convenience they've also switched completely to online billing and statements, which is cool.
There's this tendency to get locked into things that start out as a co
Sic the ADA lawyers on them (Score:2)
Then they will provide some API for websites to disallow extensions (again, an extension could steal your banking data!)
This invites a lawyer to find a client with a disability who can't use a website because it blocks the assistive browser extension on which the client relies. Together, they sue the browser publisher and website operator under Americans with Disabilities Act or foreign counterparts.
Re:Ever wondered why Win11 requires a TPM? (Score:4, Insightful)
Almost all aspects of the "old" Internet are still available to use for those who care.
If you want to run an IRC server and communicate that way the technology still works. If you want to telnet into a BBS there are still thousands of them out there for the curious. Spin up a server running phpbb if you want a place to discuss something. If you don't want to run Windows 11 or enable secure boot then use Linux.
You decry that money and non-free software ruined the internet but realistically the parts that they ruin are the things that involve . . . money and non-free software.
The "old" Internet is still there to be used. I'd wager it'll continue to be that way for a long time. And if the whole thing gets locked down then I'd wager hobbyists will have other ways of communicating even if it means going back to analog modems or wifi mesh networking.
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You missed the point I think; there's an increasing amount of .. friction incurred when trying to avoid encircling lock in. Yes, I know i could set up an IRC server, or use a BBS, I'm not sure who'd I talk to on there, but that's besides the point.
Do you own a cellphone?
Is it optional to own one when your bank/bill paying, or work requires you to use it for MFA? Or when your insurance company just uses an app in lieu of insurance cards (give it time, this will come to pass) ? And going back a few years ago
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a pointless fucking distinction in 2025.
Just assume that cloudflare or whoever will decide that is a haven for piracy, CP, and whatever else and block access.
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Re:Ever wondered why Win11 requires a TPM? (Score:5, Interesting)
Expect formats that can only be opened on a verified device by a signed app if their checksum is intact.
I already ran into this: I'm one of the several thousand recent layoffs from Microsoft and before leaving I printed my paystub and similar info to PDF and copied it onto my personal computer... only to find after I had no longer had access that when opening it on another computer it just says the PDF is encrypted. Luckily I was paranoid enough to also save the pages as HTML.
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Encrypted device specific PDFs have been a thing long before TPM was mandated. The only difference is they used a different way of hardware identification. This has been part of the PDF spec since 1994.
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Your paystub comes from ADP. You retain access to ADP after termination. You were told you cannot remove documents from a Microsoft owned machine, yet you somehow removed documents from your Microsoft owned machine and are surprised its not working? This is precisely why such controls exist, to prevent exfiltration of data. YOUR data isn't locked down, YOU can still access YOUR data on ADP's website.
source: terminated from microsoft
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Re: Ever wondered why Win11 requires a TPM? (Score:2)
Cutting off developers ie you from writing your own programs is the eventual goal. See the excellent talk about the war on general purpose computing.
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Windows doesn't even need TPM 2.0 to run
Windows core security features absolutely needs TPM 2.0. All modern OSes in some way achieve the best security using hardware security modules (yes even Linux has TPM support, it just doesn't enforce it like other OSes). Without TPM 2.0 you lose transparent system drive encryption, and you end up with passkeys stored in unsecure locations.
No I don't wonder why Win11 requires a TPM. It's obvious that they are playing catchup with Apple and Google's OSes. The fact that TPM modules can also be used for anti-ch
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Without TPM 2.0 you lose transparent system drive encryption
It's not encrypted if you forced the installer to use a local account either, which is exactly what I did
and you end up with passkeys stored in unsecure locations.
Not if you don't use passkeys lol
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It's not encrypted if you forced the installer to use a local account either, which is exactly what I did
Good use of past tense. Windows 11 doesn't allow that installer bypass anymore. And in any case Microsoft doesn't care about you or me or the weird things any individual do with their PC, they target the general consumer base. And virtually all consumers don't use local accounts since they take the path of least resistance meaning they benefit from TPM's security.
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Good use of past tense. Windows 11 doesn't allow that installer bypass anymore
You need to turn in your nerd card because there are still _multiple_ ways to install with a local only account
lost sales. (Score:1)
oh perfect! i was looking for a reason not to buy this game, thanks Microsoft!
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Probably the same phenomenon as when a publisher's system confuses Steam Deck users who do not cheat with cheaters.
Microsoft pushing Win11 (Score:4, Insightful)
Activision isn't making the calls here, Microsoft, which bought Activision, is pulling the strings in order to try and push more people to use Windows 11.
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Activision isn't making the calls here, Microsoft, which bought Activision, is pulling the strings in order to try and push more people to use Windows 11.
They pulled this crap back in the day with Halo 2 and Shadowrun being Vista only titles. I didn't care about Shadowrun as it had almost nothing to do with the RPG, and Halo 2 got to wait until I got Windows 7.
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Activision isn't making the calls here, Microsoft, which bought Activision, is pulling the strings in order to try and push more people to use Windows 11.
Yeah sorry that's horseshit. Call of Duty is far from the first game to require TPM 2.0 for its anti-cheat. And the other games on the market which do it are not owned by a studio run by Microsoft.
Gamers are already largely using Windows 11. This change has no impact on Microsoft's bottom line at all.
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Call of Duty is far from the first game to require TPM 2.0 for its anti-cheat.
I've only seen a few other games with similar requirements. However, you're missing the point that CoD series are AAA titles.
Gamers are already largely using Windows 11.
Right and to increase that number... duh.
This change has no impact on Microsoft's bottom line at all.
Why would you think this game isn't merely the first of many to suddenly sport this requirement?
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However, you're missing the point that CoD series are AAA titles.
AAA is a marketing buzzword with no meaning. If anything it can most closely be associated with investment value in a game. There are AAA games that had virtually zero players. There are non-AAA games that are hugely popular and have huge communities. It really has no relation to the topic at hand. If you want to compare it to something compare it to Valorant which has 100x the player count of any Call of Duty game yesterday according to my 2min of Google searching.
Why would you think this game isn't merely the first of many to suddenly sport this requirement?
But that was the opposite of my point. It'
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However, you're missing the point that CoD series are AAA titles.
AAA is a marketing buzzword with no meaning. If anything it can most closely be associated with investment value in a game. There are AAA games that had virtually zero players. There are non-AAA games that are hugely popular and have huge communities. It really has no relation to the topic at hand. If you want to compare it to something compare it to Valorant which has 100x the player count of any Call of Duty game yesterday according to my 2min of Google searching.
Erm... you're half right...
It is a horribly overused marketing buzzword but it does have a meaning. AAA is a financial term more than a gaming one, it refers to lowest possible credit risk so when applied to projects tends to indicate the highest possible budget. In layman's terms, AAA games had a metric shitload (0.76 imperial fucktons) of money thrown at them. It isn't an indication of product quality, only project budget although marketers like to pretend that it somehow means that it means the game i
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AAA is a marketing buzzword with no meaning.
AAA is a financial term used to describe the level of financial investment which generally reflects the excepted financial return. The natural consequence of a heavy initial investment is an expectation of wide distribution AKA popularity. This plays into my point of using it's popularity to pressure people to switch to Win11.
It's not the first of many.
Only time will tell.
It's simply the latest e-sport title to do this and doing this has nothing to do with Microsoft. Kernel Level Anticheat is a thing that has been playing a technological game of cat and mouse with users for decades.
Would you still believe this Activision started making this a requirement for all PC games that use Activision's "RICOCHET Anti-Cheat"? I say this because there are
Absurdity In Written Form (Score:2)
TPM 2.0 verifies untampered boot processes while Secure Boot ensures Windows loads only trusted software at startup.
Can we just take a moment to appreciate the amount of absurdity in the above statement?
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No kidding... The term "trusted" sure the hell isn't the system's owners' "trust"... I'm constantly so damn glad I flushed all MS crap down the commode and stick with Linux.. F--k TPM and "Secure Boot"...
So it begins (Score:2)
Your PC is not longer yours. Since Windows 11 requiring TPM 2.0, this was the obvious direction... and they are finally able to start rolling out software that explicitly requires it. Of course this has been true for a long time with rootkits and other anti-cheating software, but now it can be cryptographically enforced. Eventually this will extend to Internet access in general with every request tracked back to a personally issued token. What a brave new world for surveillance!
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Your PC is not longer yours.
No, actually a more accurate description of the technology is: “Your purchased game is no longer someone else’s for free.” Good on them, and fuck software and film pirates.
Yours sincerely,
The games industry (former employee)
The film industry (current employee, VFX).
Re:So it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Same shit with DVDs and Blu-rays. No format shifting, ads that can't be skipped, random HDCP errors that force me to keep power cycling all devices in my media chain until it somehow starts working again. Here too, the pirated product is better. It's not that I don't want to pay for stuff, I'd love to pay in order to have companies make more enjoyable content. But as a paying customer I don't want to be treated worse than the pirates!
And it's becoming a matter of principle as well. Morally I used to feel compelled to pay, perhaps buying a Blu-ray and only then getting a pirated file (or ripping the disc when possible). But these days? Game companies still have my sympathy, but movie companies have perverted the social contract of Copyright so far beyond its original intent, that I do not feel a single shred of obligation anymore to keep my end of it.
don't let them call it buy or purchase make it say (Score:2)
don't let them call it buy or purchase make it say rental
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It's more like "Your purchased game is no longer yours to play, because we said so".
Are they stopping people that purchased the game from playing it? I didn’t know that. Thanks for the update.
Here too, the pirated product is better. It's not that I don't want to pay for stuff, I'd love to pay in order to have companies make more enjoyable content. But as a paying customer I don't want to be treated worse than the pirates!
Do you simply mean that paying customers have to play it on supported platforms and accounts that own the software, whereas people that stole the software can play it on unsupported platforms and accounts that do not own the software? So you do not like that thieves can use things in contexts and places that paying customers cannot? Then we agree. The thief gets to use things when the rightful o
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So you do not like that thieves can use things in contexts and places that paying customers cannot?
No. I do not like having all manner of restrictions and inconveniences imposed on my legal enjoyment of the product, in an attempt to stop piracy (it doesn't). As I paying customer I expect, as I should, the same unencumbered experience that users of pirated copies enjoy. And I certainly do not want to be forced to lock down my own hardware or compromise it with some rootkit (like the infamous one from Sony) in order to enjoy content.
Like so many others, you mistake the motive of people who pirate con
"Unsupported platform" concept is anticompetitive (Score:2)
Are they stopping people that purchased the game from playing it?
With respect to Call of Duty games: Yes. Games supporting Xbox Live on the original Xbox console are no longer playable online. Games for PlayStation 2 had a trend of closing even earlier with DNAS error -103 "This software title is not in service."
And with respect to recent games: The publisher of the game Concord closed its sole server less than a month after release.
And with respect to recent games that rely on Windows security technologies: Players of Marvel Rivals on Linux and macOS got banned from the
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It's more like "Your purchased game is no longer yours to play, because we said so". Meh.
If you wanted to play offline only games I'd be right there with you. But playing anything online should not be without restriction because people are simply the worst. I am fully in support of toxic cheaters ruining the game for others not being allowed to play the thing they bought.
Your freedom ends where other's begins.
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I also make a living from creative work and it annoys me as well to see someone blatantly trying to rip us off. But I think you and I both know that it's unlikely measures like this will prevent piracy for very long even if they are initially successful. The only thing you can truly control is the systems that don't belong to your user, so that's where you need to put anything you don't want them messing with.
Meanwhile as someone who is also a user and also doing other things than playing games on my device
Re: (Score:1)
Your PC is not longer yours.
I can't wait to see how you react upon learning Microsoft will sign my cheat engine hook code for $10, or issue me a cert to sign whatever drivers I wish for $100
No, actually a more accurate description of the technology is: âoeYour purchased game is no longer someone elseâ(TM)s for free.â Good on them, and fuck software and film pirates.
YOU chose the price of your game that I paid.
If you "feel" I should have paid more than that, you fucked up, not everyone else.
As a game dev maybe you should stop stealing other peoples IP and pay for it for a damn change before throwing around the term "pirate"
Re: (Score:2)
>"Your PC is not longer yours."
All of mine are, because I run Linux on everything, and always have. Thankfully, I don't want to play that game. But I am worried about other things that could block open systems in the future because they are not "trustworthy."
I am willing to put my money where my mouth is. For example, if my bank pulls something like that (requiring a certain "platform"), I will change banks and loudly let them know why I did. I already did with a credit card company with whom I had a
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Good thing Linux is now a better gaming platform than Windows. Who needs a blue screen in the middle of your big money tournament? Oh wait, Microsoft fixed that by changing the color of the screen.
Correct response: punish Activision for participating in this anti-competitive charade. You know what to do.
Trash (Score:3)
Garbage game by garbage company for garbage gamers.
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Seriously. I almost never buy games anymore except an occasional indie title. I don't know why people buy this AAA crap, regardless of the level of DRM.
will they try to say that Linux is like an game ge (Score:2)
will they try to say that Linux is like an game genie and must be banned?
an good place for app store rules to put an cap on (Score:2)
an good place for app store rules to put an cap on stuff like this.
Now this may be the max but the app store rules should be.
Must allow multi boot (can't only work on systems set for boot windows only)
Vendor lock in not allowed like not allowed to use lockouts like if non 100% DELL flag set can may get set on DELL systems running non DELL video cards / storage / ram / etc.
Must allow white box systems (can't force only allowed on OEM systems)
Can't block game from running if say someone has GOG store install.
CoD had anticheat since forever, why code 2 (Score:2)
CoD 6 had anticheat.
SecureBoot and TPM 2.0 have been mandatory on OEM Machines since 2018
At most in Oct 2026 Win10 will be out of support from versions of the OS that gamers can legally get their hands on
And Every supported Win11 version WILL have TPM2.0 and SecureBoot
So, why code AND SUPPORT two versions of the anticheat for CoD7? One without TPM2.0 and secureboot that will last only a year, and one with them that will keep going on for a loooooong time. Is silly.
And is not only CoD7. The new Battlefront