A while ago, I shared a post about the work PUBG Corporation were doing, on preventing cheating in-game. Why people cheat in the first place, is genuinely beyond me. In a game of skill, chance and chaos, where’s the fun in aim-botting etc?
I’ll never understand, but that’s beside the point. A letter has been published around the first half of 2024 and the work going in to prevent cheaters from ruining the game.
Here’s the content!
Anti-Cheat letter
As the first half of 2024 has come to a close, we’re back with our mid-year Anti-Cheat review. This year, PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS has also undergone various changes. In today’s Dev Letter, we’ll give you an overview of our ongoing efforts to combat cheating and highlight the measures we’ve taken since unveiling our 2024 Roadmap. We’ll also share a glimpse into what’s in store for the remainder of the year.
Anti-Cheat activities in ’24. 1H
In 2024, the PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS Anti-Cheat Team continues to take various actions to establish a fair gaming environment. Today, we’d like to share a detailed update on the current status through several key metrics. Please note that regional situations may vary, as all graphs and statistics presented cover all regions.
Let’s start by examining the percentages of suspected cheaters. As shown in the graphs below, the daily percentages of suspected cheaters in Ranked and Normal Match have continued to decline in the first half of 2024, building on the downward trend observed in 2023.
We prioritized enhancing our detection capabilities, making significant technical advancements to identify and flag illegal software more swiftly, precisely, and thoroughly. Key upgrades included refining and introducing two new features to Zakynthos, our proprietary Anti-Cheat solution. As a result, we successfully issued permanent bans to 1,480,434 accounts for using illegal software during the first half of 2024. Furthermore, we conducted two rounds of optimizations and enhancements for Anti-ESP, addressing vulnerabilities and bolstering overall system security.
The data below shows that the percentage of suspected cheaters in Ranked temporarily went up after April 2024 due to an increase in the use of new types of illegal software, but has since resumed its downward trend as a result of active countermeasures.
We are also addressing the issue of keyboard and mouse usage on Console platforms. In the first half of the year, we developed and implemented a system to analyze and categorize keyboard and mouse usage patterns. We’re currently validating the system further to establish a reliable baseline and put it into practical use. Building on this foundation, we plan to enhance our response capabilities in the second half of the year.
Improving the temporary ban system
When issuing temporary bans, various characteristics and records of cheaters are taken into account. Some temporary bans are based on a combination of player reports and other in-game data. As players cannot control reports from others, there is a risk that temporary bans could mistakenly affect innocent players if certain conditions beyond the reports are also met. However, it is important to note that no ban is based solely on player reports. Instead, bans are issued after a thorough analysis of a wide range of in-game patterns and data.
This year, we’ve been shifting away from temporary bans that are even partially affected by player reports. Instead, we’re replacing them with advanced deep-learning models to identify and classify cheating behaviours, including the use of aimbots, ESPs, and recoil control hacks.
The graph below shows the daily shares of temporary ban types since July 2023, with the bottom area representing the percentage of report-related temporary bans. (Here, report-related bans refer to the temporary bans that consider player reports along with other in-game data, and log/logic-related bans refer to the ones that only consider in-game data.)
You can see that the report-related temporary bans are gradually decreasing in the first half of 2024, and we plan to replace all of them soon to reduce the risk of false temporary bans. Of course, while we’re removing player reports as a factor in bans, they will still be an important resource for us to understand the current state of cheating and to respond to suspected cheaters.
In addition to replacing report-related bans, we’re also working to improve the accuracy of existing temporary bans.
As shown in the <Validity of Temporary Bans> metric below, we’re continuing to improve the accuracy of our temporary bans and the number of ban appeals we receive from players has been decreasing.
In a previous Dev Letter, we introduced the hardware ban method that issues temporary bans depending on the situation, but this has caused some confusion among players. Therefore, we plan to refine and adjust the scope of its application.
We have also enhanced our team kill response logic to address instances where players were not being penalized for team kills or were being unfairly restricted due to mistakes. Through a thorough analysis of factors such as intent and player interactions, we have improved our response mechanisms to ensure fairer outcomes. We are now closely monitoring the impact of these changes and assessing whether further refinements are required.
Measures against new threats
As we’ve strengthened and enhanced our measures to combat cheating, new types of illegal software use have also surfaced, posing a continued challenge.
One notable example is the exploitation of hardware-based “Direct Memory Access” (DMA) to run illegal software. Following confirmation of DMA usage in gaming, we’ve developed various detection technologies to issue bans. Furthermore, we updated our Rules of Conduct and Terms of Service on June 12 to impose permanent bans on DMA usage. Our efforts to refine our detection technologies are ongoing, as we continue to invest in research and development to stay ahead of emerging threats.
Additionally, we have detected the development of illegal software utilizing the latest technologies. While these programs are still in their early stages and provide only limited advantages, we consider them a threat to the integrity of the gaming environment and are dedicated to combating them.
As these new threats are unlikely to disappear anytime soon, the PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS Anti-Cheat Team remains dedicated to enhancing our anti-cheat initiatives to foster a fair gaming environment. Lastly, we are also committed to addressing the issues related to the leaderboards based on your feedback.
We’ll see you in the next Dev Letter.
PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS Anti-Cheat Team
Anti-Cheat is good stuff
It’s always great to see this level of transparency, and what appears to be great success, too. Anti-cheat is no easy thing to enforce when literally millions of people are all individually working against the measures in unique ways.
It’ll never stop, but seeing PUBG Corp engage with it, sharing their work and showing their Anti-Cheat progress really goes a long way. Sure, this only seems to address PC players, and console players are likely in a worse spot because the focus isn’t there. But at least something is being done to counter cheating.
I’d like to see more of this from other developers!
For even more updates on the hottest games around, including Anti-Cheat measures by devs, check out our gaming news section.