Rockstar Games’ servers have been under heavy fire from massive DDoS attacks in recent days, causing widespread login and connectivity issues for players of GTA Online. These attacks come in the wake of Rockstar’s recent implementation of BattlEye, a new anti-cheat system designed to crack down on in-game cheating, sparking backlash from a segment of the player base. Protesters, unhappy with the new system, have resorted to using distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to disrupt the servers, escalating tensions between the gaming giant and its community.
No one decided cheating in multiplayer games is fine. But invasive anti-cheat software is significantly worse, and frankly doesn’t actually work. Automated detection tools can help, but ultimately you need mods / admins to properly stay on top of cheating. Trying to replace those jobs with incredibly invasive software installed on every user’s device is just a sign of a trash developer or publisher.