The Future of Gaming with New AI-Powered Anti-Cheats

Online gaming has evolved, and we are probably at the pivotal point where the future of gaming will include AI in game development, gameplay, and add-on tools. So many people spend their time in alternative worlds such as VR shows, games, etc. The gaming market is worth $546.99 billion and growing at 13.9%.

However, another leeching industry arising from it is the AI-powered game hacks market, which is also growing while reducing the profit share of mainstream companies in the gaming industry because many players give up playing online with multiplayers. Online game cheaters and hackers have been a pain in the a$$, and that is about to change.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has shown tremendous capabilities in different fields such as cybersecurity, programming, software development, and even the revolutionization of African languages. Now they are in gaming, but with positive and negative effects based on how certain players use them. This article highlights the problems of the gaming industry as they pertain to AI influence and the future.

AI Cheats in Gaming

One out of three online gamers uses cheat codes. It gives them an unfair advantage to have the highest accomplishments in playing online multiplayer games. They are most common in first-person shooter (FPS) and massive multiplayer online (MMO) games. AI cheats are used in games such as Call of Duty, PUBG’s Battlegrounds, GTA 5, Destiny 2, Counter-Strike, and lots more.

Cheat codes are programs developed to give certain players an edge through certain features like 'god mode', endurance, identifying enemy locations, and so on. They are on every system and console. With 33% (based on previously mentioned statistics) of players in any game being cheaters, the fun and thrill of the gaming experience are ruined for many sincere gamers.

Although there is no formal data, I gather that the AI game cheat industry is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, edging into billions. Here are some numbers. In 2021, a gang was caught by the Chinese police and Tencent, with $76 million in revenue charged to clients as subscription fees. Another report by Old School Gamers stated they know cheat developers who make over $2 million per month, accumulating to $24 million per year. Imagine more cheat developers, that would justify my claim.

Types of AI-Powered Game Cheats

Sometimes, developers insert cheat codes in games purposefully for the sake of debugging or identifying ways to improve the game and its experience. However, third-party software developers and gamers come up with malicious code that give players a fair advantage and exploit game companies.

A primary way these codes work is to serve as a mediator between remote play and the game. It leverages the live stream of your game, as long as you are connected to the internet. It enables mouse and keyboard tracking on consoles to give you feedback that you can use to your advantage.

Players also cheat with AI-aided aim to assist them. It is called ‘aimbots’, which use AI to read and find the enemies and send the data back to the cheater's system, whether Android, PC, Game Pass, etc. It aims the enemy with computer-enhanced precision while functioning as a remote control.

Advanced AI game cheats

“A new kind of aimbot has taken games like Warzone and Apex Legends by storm. It uses computer vision to identify enemy players in a complex game world and then signal the player to shoot at a specific location.

“Players use a PC to process the video feed from their games console, and then run the automation and machine learning scripts; they would also connect the console’s controller to the PC via a hardware device, to emulate the controller's signals.

Players can set the extent of aim assist, and even input the system to select specific target zones on enemy bodies – headshots included.”- AI Business

While some basic cheats are detectable by anti-cheat programs, most are not (at least, not until recently). These advanced cheats have no capture card, no special device, are totally undetectable, and are easily accessible. They use live play to make aspersions, draw conclusions, and recommend actions.

Systems from the referenced from AI Business above, analyze if an enemy is visible from a player's position and uses "Triggerbot" (another intelligence program) to fire at them. Some advanced systems like ESP use object analysis and image recognition to differentiate between a player and an object on the screen. This program is trained with numerous image textures to enable it to identify between an object and a player.

There are automated or assisted play cheats such that a cheater’s system learns the dynamics of players' movements to learn maps of unfamiliar territories and even adapt to how a human expert gamer would play a game and simulate the same pattern.

Current AI Anti-cheat Solutions and why They are Not the Future of Gaming

Many have promised and failed, and some players are currently not enthusiastic about the possibility of a better solution. When BattlEye announced its anti-cheat, it all looked hopeful until it was launched, and it had many false positives and wasn’t used beyond Battlefield 5.

Valve anti-cheat (VAC) was another that didn’t impress so much. It was designed to maintain fair and competitive environments within online multiplayer games. Developed by Valve Corporation, VAC employs advanced algorithms and detection mechanisms to identify and prevent cheating, hacking, and other unauthorized activities that can undermine the integrity of gameplay.

By actively scanning for cheating software, modified game files, and suspicious behavior, VAC helps create a level playing field where players can compete based on skill and strategy rather than unfair advantages. The problem was that there were false positives and causes lag time for players. Although VAC is impressive, a solution befitting for the future of gaming has to be swift and not spoil the fun with false positives.

FaceIT Anti-Cheat: FaceIT Anti-Cheat is used in the FaceIT competitive gaming platform. It combines client-side and server-side checks to ensure a cheat-free environment for competitive matches. Some users complained of ridiculous lag time or the failure for the app to launch.

ESEA Anti-Cheat: ESEA (E-Sports Entertainment Association) offers a subscription-based anti-cheat solution for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It focuses on protecting the integrity of competitive gameplay. Sadly, players may be able to create new accounts and be more careful with the way they play.

Source: Steam

The Future of Gaming with the Perfect AI Anti-Cheat: Is there One?

A perfect anti-cheat tool (if there's ever going to be any) isn’t just going to be a software but an AI tool that can study game plays, monitor accuracy, and judge the ratio of time spent online with the proficiency of a registered user, among many other things.

It has to be a constantly learning and evolving tool that discovers each new gimmick that cheaters come up with. For the longest time, people have been looking for such, and that is where Anybrain step into the gaming foyer.

Anybrain:

In my research over the past few months, only Anybrain has the best prospects of tackling the issue of online cheat gaming. It is still in the testing stage, with lots of work ongoing.

It is also an AI tool that analyzes multiple parameters in a player’s gameplay to detect irregularities that human eyes might be unable to perceive.

It considers:

1. The use of aimbots to target enemies

2. The accuracy of players in shooting down enemies around obstacles

3. Player behaviors (looking around for enemies before shooting, reaction time aiming, on-screen movement into enclosed territories).

   
   

They seem to almost tick all the boxes in a research paper I found here about data capture for cheat detection systems. The article emphasized mouse behavior, keystroke dynamics, and console logs.

What is Anybrain Contributing to the Future of Gaming?

In its current operations and prospects, Anybrain creators have interesting plans. The solution is a machine learning program, so it is constantly learning based on data observed in how players play.

1. In reviewing players in a game, Anybrain’s program pixelates the view of aims to detect if aims are aided or not.

   
   

2. Due to its ML model, it gains accuracy over repetitive play. Observing repetitive play is important because sometimes a player might be good or just lucky, and it would be unfair to nuke them for the way they shoot down a target just once.

   
   

3. It takes over 5 minutes for the program to detect a cheat with all these parameters in real-time.

   
   

4. They are looking forward to implementing a biometric profile for players, and I believe this is the future of security among gamers to protect account integrity and limit cheating!

   
   

5. A biometric profile will give the system a baseline of two hours to understand how a registered player plays. It is almost like gait recognition (using deep learning to collect better data, which is the act of tracking the unique way someone walks or runs to identify them even if you can’t see their face). Once detected, it brings a permanent ban on a player, and they don't have the opportunity to create another account to continue the game with the same biometric information.

See video on the problem of online gaming cheat and the bright future of gaming with the new AI anti-cheat.

Some folks think it is pointless, but I believe the future is bright and great, like this user that I found on Reddit. With AI leveraging numerous sources of data and speed, the learning curve will be exponential.

Conclusion:

It’s the dawn of a new era in online gaming. Those who have given up on online games can begin to dust their boots again. Soon, there will be more companies like Anybrain leveraging deep ML capabilities to train effective programs that will catch cheaters in multiplayer games. Of course, some gamers will keep trying to cheat, but the automated anti-cheat programs also won't be tired of learning and fishing them out. It's a new day, and the future of video games is bright with AI in it!