Cheating in Esports and how it’s Dealt with

In this essay I am going to be discussing how cheating is prevented in Esports events and organisations such as Gfinity Elite, IEM Katowice and more. I will also be discussing how cheating is prevented with technology and without it. Another aspect of this is, why these organisations need these strategies in place to prevent teams or individuals from cheating. Furthermore, I will also explain what games are using anti cheat systems and what kind of cheats or hacks are used in these games. Later on in the essay I will also bring up cases of cheating in Esports over the recent years now that it has become more popular. For a part of this essay I will be referencing Mia Consalvo’s book “Cheating – Gaining Advantage In Video Games.” Towards the end of the essay I will be giving my opinion on cheating in Esports and how it effects the organisations and the teams involved.

Cheating in First person shooter games like CSGO is used everyday, one of the main cheats that be used in games is aim hacking. Aim hacking is where the players crosshair will lock onto the other players player model giving the hacker 100% accuracy. Another very Common hack in shooting games in particular is wall hacking. Wall hacking is where the player can see red outlines of the enemies through walls even across the map the hacker will also be able to see outlines of teammates which can lead to the hacker giving information to teammates about where the enemies are. Furthermore, a third way of cheating in games is using something called a Bhop script. A Bhop script can be used to help a hacker get across the map quicker than anybody else that is either walking or running. Spinnbotting is when a hacker can just spin around on one spot and look at the floor and kill the whole enemy team in one bullet.

The first technology that I will be talking about is Valve anti cheat. Valve anti cheat is used only on Steam on hundreds of games including; CSGO, Call of Duty, DOTA and Team Fortress 2 just to name a few. Valve will issue timely bans out to players who’re hacking. How long the ban lasts for is determined on how game changing the hack is. For example, if a player uses wall hacks in game they could possibly be banned for life, this is also known as being ‘VAC Banned’. On the other hand, if a player is using Bhop scripts they may only be banned for a week. The way that Valve anti cheat works is that the system will search through the players PC files, find the hacks that the player is using and then ban them accordingly. The ban will only effect VAC secured servers, players who have been banned will still be able to play on community servers.

The second technology that I will be talking about is Easy anti-cheat. Easy anti-cheat also effects games such as CSGO and Team Fortress 2 but only in tournaments from organisations and websites such as Gfinity and Faceit.

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