By Sukanya Ganesh in AI — Nov 27, 2024

🎮 Leveling the Playing Field

AI is combating gaming cheats by detecting hacks, adapting to new methods, and ensuring fair play for all.

How AI helps in cheat detection and prevention in gaming

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Cheating in gaming, whether through aimbots or exploiting glitches, can quickly ruin the fun and frustrate honest players. To address this, gaming companies are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence (AI) to maintain fairness and improve the gaming experience. AI excels at identifying suspicious patterns, adapting to evolving cheating tactics, and monitoring games in real time to catch rule-breaking behavior. Beyond detecting cheats, AI also protects game code and helps curb toxic player habits, creating a more balanced and enjoyable environment for all players. By leveraging these advanced tools, developers are reshaping the way fairness is maintained in the gaming world.

Spotting Unfair Behavior During Gameplay

Imagine playing a shooter game, and one player hits every shot perfectly, even through walls. AI, like the systems used by Activision for Call of Duty: Warzone, can detect this by analyzing how players move and aim. If the actions are too good to be human, the AI flags it.
The AI learns what normal gameplay looks like and can spot when someone’s behavior doesn’t match, like if they suddenly gain superhuman accuracy.

Learning to Catch New Cheats

Cheaters use tools like aimbots (auto-aim) or speed hacks (running faster than possible). AI from companies like Riot Games (used in Valorant) is trained on data from known cheats to recognize these patterns in real time.
If someone invents a new cheat, the AI can quickly adapt by learning from the data, much faster than human reviewers.

Watching for Fishy Internet Traffic

In multiplayer games like Apex Legends, cheaters sometimes hack the way game data travels over the internet to manipulate their actions. AI from BattleEye can spot these altered data packets and shut down the cheater.
It stops cheaters without affecting regular players who just have bad internet connections.

Tracking Bad Player Habits

A player keeps ruining matches by harassing others or purposely losing (griefing). Games like League of Legends use AI to track this behavior and either warn or ban the player.
This doesn’t just stop technical cheating but also keeps the gaming community positive.

Making Cheat Detection Fair and Clear

Imagine being wrongly banned because the system thought you were cheating. AI systems in games like PUBG reduce this risk by being smarter at spotting real cheats and can even provide reasons for bans.
This builds trust between players and the game developers.

Protecting the Game Itself

Some cheats mess with the game’s code to give unfair advantages, like seeing through walls (wallhacks). AI tools, like those integrated into Easy Anti-Cheat (used by Fortnite), watch for these code changes and block them before they work.
AI is the game’s security guard, checking to make sure no one sneaks in tools to break the rules.

AI in cheat detection ensures that gaming is fair, fun, and free of bad actors, keeping players focused on enjoying the experience.