Escape From Tarkov and the High Price of Cheating

[EvilRoy]

I just came across this story on a pretty insane situation over on the world of Tarkov, a realistic shooter focused on survival with limited resources which, of course, has real world money involved in buying and trading those resources around.

There was a huge scandal kicked off recently by a YouTuber called G0at who did a video on the inundation of cheaters in the game, which got signal boosted by Linus Tech tips and absolutely exploded.

I only know about this game because a good friend of mine speaks Russian and nags me to play it with him so he can translate the enemies to me, but I'm still very surprised that the reaction by the devs looks like a storm in a teacup from the outside.

The news:

Russian game developer bans and doxes 6,700 cheaters | TechCrunch

Battlestate Games, the publishers of first-person shooter Escape From Tarkov announced the bans of 6,700 cheaters in a week.

www.google.com

So, yeah. Right off the bat I'll say that I don't support doxxing in any form or purpose so I have chosen not to look at the spreadsheet. For that reason I can't say how individually damning the identifying information posted is. That aside, I'm blown away that a dev who has to this point not given a shit about cheating deciding to nuke from orbit like this.

I guess this post is a PSA. Don't cheat in Tarkov. I'll update if anything develops, but honest to god it looks like the dust already settled on this one.

 

[Baffle]

Seems an excessive response to cheating in a game, though I do loathe people who cheat in multiplayer games.

I feel that at the point you cheat against other players, you don't really enjoy playing, you only enjoy winning. And is winning by cheating not just the losing we were doing all along (yes)?

 

[Chimpzy]

Aw, I came in expecting hired goons coming to cheaters doorstep to punch them in the nards, but it's just a little doxxing.

 

[Absent]

I'm highly amused by the fact they don't even do this in casinos.

 

[Elijin]

Shouldn't doxx people, but there's a certain flare to reacting like this since Tarkov is a cutthroat high risk, high reward template.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I'm no expert in Russian law, but I don't think publishing their online handles meets any legal definition of "doxxing". Still, I've seen this kind of "name and shame" thing before and it very seldom does anything good.

I feel that at the point you cheat against other players, you don't really enjoy playing, you only enjoy winning. And is winning by cheating not just the losing we were doing all along (yes)?

A long, long time ago, I watched a recording of someone streaming the game APB while using an obvious cheat overlay. In that clip, the cheater easily beat an opponent, then ran up to the corpse and teabagged it, chanting "so bad, so bad". That's a huge draw to cheaters- getting to say "I win", even if they didn't earn it.

 

[Baffle]

A long, long time ago, I watched a recording of someone streaming the game APB while using an obvious cheat overlay. In that clip, the cheater easily beat an opponent, then ran up to the corpse and teabagged it, chanting "so bad, so bad". That's a huge draw to cheaters- getting to say "I win", even if they didn't earn it.

We've a finite number of years, and there's so many better pointless ways to spend them. We're all dust in the end, but people like that already are.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

We've a finite number of years, and there's so many better pointless ways to spend them. We're all dust in the end, but people like that already are.

Playing APB would have been the first clue.

 

[EvilRoy]

I'm no expert in Russian law, but I don't think publishing their online handles meets any legal definition of "doxxing". Still, I've seen this kind of "name and shame" thing before and it very seldom does anything good.


A long, long time ago, I watched a recording of someone streaming the game APB while using an obvious cheat overlay. In that clip, the cheater easily beat an opponent, then ran up to the corpse and teabagged it, chanting "so bad, so bad". That's a huge draw to cheaters- getting to say "I win", even if they didn't earn it.

Ah, so that's what's up. I didn't look at the list at all so I didn't realize it was only handles - it does explain why nobody seems to give a damn. Skimming the reddit there are still people cheating like crazy and others using the tricks shown in the original video to identify cheaters all the same.

 

[Summerstorm]

Awww... not really doxxing. It's just their Account-Name. No email adress, nothing. Just the playertag/gamername or whatever you call it. ( I was expecting something really weird)

I find this pretty ok to do.

If someone finds you in another game with your name from Tarkov you can always say: Nah, someone else did it or: That was me, but it was unfairly banned because blablabla.

The only info is: Someone with this freely chosen gamername was banned by us for cheating by "insert company". Nothing else.

i don't really get how this is so scandalous. A bit of light public shaming.

Of course a lot of that could be false positives or unregulated revenge from... i don't know forum mods or some shit, but hey. i am going so far and they i guess MOST of those guys cheated in a multiplayer game.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Awww... not really doxxing. It's just their Account-Name. No email adress, nothing. Just the playertag/gamername or whatever you call it. ( I was expecting something really weird)

I find this pretty ok to do.

If someone finds you in another game with your name from Tarkov you can always say: Nah, someone else did it or: That was me, but it was unfairly banned because blablabla.

The only info is: Someone with this freely chosen gamername was banned by us for cheating by "insert company". Nothing else.

i don't really get how this is so scandalous. A bit of light public shaming.

Of course a lot of that could be false positives or unregulated revenge from... i don't know forum mods or some shit, but hey. i am going so far and they i guess MOST of those guys cheated in a multiplayer game.

Exactly what I was thinking, that's not actually doxxing to say xl33tgamerx3 cheated. It's probably helpful to keep the competitive community viable so you can remove cheaters from your clan and not play other cheaters.

 

[Ag3ma]

A long, long time ago, I watched a recording of someone streaming the game APB while using an obvious cheat overlay. In that clip, the cheater easily beat an opponent, then ran up to the corpse and teabagged it, chanting "so bad, so bad". That's a huge draw to cheaters- getting to say "I win", even if they didn't earn it.

I'm sure some people cheat just out of malice. Some, maybe, because they think everyone else is chearing so they may as well too because its the only way to be equal. Some - and I might be slightly more sympathetic here - may cheat because they are under extreme pressure.

But I think you're right that a lot of it is to simply to appear to be top of the heap, because that gives them a form of "status" (and/or material reward, depending on what they are cheating at). I would view this as hollow: I don't think I could really get past the fact that it would mean I'm actually really shit at something. But then, other people are different.