These rootkits are now considered the cost of admission to playing games, because gamers won't fight the practice, and they hate cheaters so much they are willing to accept anything.
Also consider: HN is full of software developers. If it's a choice between "What Software Developers Want To Do To Your Computer" and "What Users Want To Stop Them From Doing," HN commenters tend to be strongly on the side of the developers.
Thanks for replying. It's good to know that I'm not alone. That's the real reason why I comment these things.
I completely agree with you.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills because if you apply this situation to pretty much any other consumer product it gets ridiculous fast. What if a car doesn't allow you to turn off an approved road? What if it limited your speed to posted limits? What if you could only use fuel from one brand of station? If parts used DRM so the dealership had to do your brakes and any repairs?
All of these things would cause a massive backlash.
But computers are so hard people can't be trusted with them. It's just nuts.
Because that is what they do. They think we are all potential cheaters who need to be preemptively stopped and controlled lest we crack their games open. They feel absolutely justified in doing whatever it takes to "ensure" their precious games aren't "tampered with". There are no limits they wouldn't cross.
It's just what I've come to expect from the copyright industry as a whole. Our computers already come pwned straight off the factory just to appease "content creators". We really don't need game companies making the situation even worse.
> To what ends?
It doesn't matter. The result is we have to install their rootkits to play games we paid for. There are no excuses for that.
> many multiplayer games couldn’t really exist in their current form
Not a big deal. Maintaining control over our machines is more important. If that's the price I'll pay it gladly.
> How can cheaters bypass the anticheat root kits and still play onlie?
You'd have to ask them. I'm far from an expert on the subject. I just know that whatever it is that they do no doubt leads to their customers having to put up with a lot less game company malware than they would have needed to otherwise.