Combating Cheating in Video Games with Bans Automation

The video game industry is growing at an impressive pace, with new games being released every day, from innovative indie games to highly anticipated AAA titles releases from major studios.

One of the primary focuses of these games is the multiplayer modes, a cornerstone of modern games, that attract millions of competitive players eager to build their legacy.

Many games offer rewards to those players who reach the top tier of the game, it could be in-game benefits or even financial incentives.

These elements become even more significant in titles that have their own economies, such as free-to-play games, where rare items, skins, or virtual currencies can have real monetary value.

With the promise of great rewards and a fierce competition, an inevitable reality emerges, many players resort to cheats or prohibited methods to achieve the best results, and claim the best rewards that the game has to offer.

In this post, we’ll explore how AI anti-cheat systems and bans automation are transforming the way games combat cheating.

The Negative Impact of Cheats in Games

These actions affect both the player’s experience and the reputation of the studio behind the game. When no measures are taken or the best mechanisms are not implemented to combat cheating, games can quickly lose their player base, retain new users, and even face project shutdowns.

The negative image that was created can also compromise future projects from the studio and discourages potential investors.

The damages are not only related to reputation, in free-to-play games, that are highly dependent on their in-game economies, could see a great impact, where rare item lose their value, for example.

This often results in revenue loss for games that rely on microtransactions.

Solutions Against Cheats

There are several measures you can implement to mitigate this problem, the most common are:

• Server authority and encryption to protect game data and prevent external manipulation.
• Regular testing, including stress tests and debugging sessions, to identify and fix exploits, bugs, and glitches.
• Anti-cheat systems, such as Advanced AI solutions, like those offered by Anybrain, which analyzes and detects suspicious behavior in real-time with a level of precision higher than traditional methods.

However, merely detecting cheaters is not enough. It’s essential to impose effective and dissuasive sanctions on players who break the rules. These sanctions are often implemented in the form of bans.

Types of Bans

Bans can be applied in different ways, depending on the severity of the infraction and the game rules:

• Temporary bans for less severe infractions.
• Permanent bans reserved for more serious cases.
• Chat bans to block toxic behavior without banning players from the game.
• Account, IP, or hardware bans to prevent cheaters from easily returning.
• Shadow bans, isolating the cheaters from the legit players without their knowledge, minimizing their impact on the other players experiences.

Today, thousands of cheats are available in online forums, ranging from free tools to paid ones or with subscription services. Some are easily detectable, while others are more complex, making detection a challenge that only an advanced AI anti-cheat system can handle.

Free-to-play games face the additional challenge of players creating multiple accounts to continue cheating after being banned, and, if not resolved, can severely impact the community.

The first challenge starts here, even if cheaters are being detected, manually reviewing cases or applying bans is not a viable solution in games with thousands of players.

This is where bans automation becomes an essential part of your game.

What Is Bans Automation?

Bans automation is an automated system that applies sanctions to the players, it’s quick, scalable, and precise, without requiring constant human moderation. This system is particularly important in games with large player bases, where traditional moderation methods would be slow and costly.

In a game with over 10 million active users, ban automation could reduce manual moderation time by 80%.

Advantages of Bans Automation

By defining the scope of your rules and the scenarios in which they will be applied, including the type of ban, by adopting bans automation you can revolutionize how your game handles cheaters.

Here are the key benefits:

1. Efficiency
   Bans are applied automatically, freeing up moderators to focus on more important tasks such as community building or addressing critical issues.
2. Accuracy
   Rules are carefully defined and fully customizable, ensuring that bans are only applied to players who meet all parameters. This significantly reduces the risk of errors compared to manual bans.
3. Scalability
   In games with millions of players, manual ban application becomes impractical. Bans automation eliminates that limitation, allowing the system to operate seamlessly even during peak CCU hours.
4. Speed
   The system can apply bans in real-time, preventing cheaters from causing any harm or interference in the game. Alternatively, ban waves can be scheduled to remove multiple cheaters simultaneously, creating a strong deterrent effect.
5. Transparency and Control
   It’s automated, but the system allows you to review, update, or deactivate rules at any time. This ensures that you take complete control over decisions made by the system.

When well implemented, bans automation can effectively keep your game free of cheaters.

Addressing False Positives

Another challenge arises, we all aim to maintain a cheat-free game environment, but it’s important above all else, to avoid banning innocent players, the so-called false positives.

Although bans automation offers numerous advantages, addressing the issue of false positives is critical. This is one of the player’s biggest concerns, as any mistake could cause irreparable damage to the game and player reputation.

To mitigate this risk, we at Anybrain focus on maintaining a false positive rate below 0.001% for each detection. Additionally, the system allows moderators to manually review specific cases, ensuring that any uncertain situations can be thoroughly analyzed.

With bans automation, you can address potential false positives by applying a shadow ban to players with fewer fraud occurrences or minimal fraudulent activity.

This allows you to monitor their behavior over time, and if the number of frauds continues to increase, you can then apply a stricter ban.

Alternatively, if the player proves to be a false positive, you can revoke their ban.

This approach ensures proactive action on early frauds, helping you address potential issues while reducing the risk of excessive punishment.

Players Perception

There may be some player pushback against automated bans, feeling that the human touch in moderation has been lost. However, it’s essential to highlight that bans automation does not exclude manual moderation. Instead, it complements and enhances existing processes.

Games can also share aggregated data on ban statistics with the community to demonstrate the system’s reliability and fairness.

By clearly communicating the benefits and transparency of the system, studios can build trust within the community, reinforcing the message that the primary goal is to create a fair and competitive environment for everyone.

Anybrain Role in Combating Cheats

At Anybrain, beyond providing an AI anti-cheat capable of detecting the most complex cheats in real-time, we also offer tools such as:

• Bans automation, enabling automatic sanctions based on anti-cheat detections.
• Detailed analysis tools, allowing manual review of specific cases.
• Webhook integration, synchronizing information with the game system for better control and data analyzes.

Additionally, we provide continuous support to ensure that our system is always optimized and tailored to your games needs.

Conclusion

Bans automation is not just a tool, it’s a commitment to fairness and integrity in gaming.
Protecting your game means protecting your brand and your players.

Visit https://anybrain.gg/ to learn how Anybrain AI anti-cheat and bans automation can help you to detect and prevent cheats in online multiplayer games, how to increase your player retention and protect your game.

Your game, your rules.