Prevention vs detection in online game cheating

Abstract. Cheating is a major problem in online games, but solving this would require either a complicated architecture design, costly third-party anti-cheat, or both. This paper aims to explore the differences between preventive and detective solutions against online game cheating. Specifically, it explores solutions against software-based cheatings, what kind of cheats there are, and what proposed and implemented solutions there are. This paper was conducted using literature reviews as methodology, using relevant papers from databases such as ResearchGate, ACM, and IEEE. In this paper, it was concluded that a good prevention strategy during the game development phase is adequate to mitigate and prevent cheating but will require appropriate anti-cheat software to maintain fairness during the lifetime of the game. The importance of an online game’s network architecture choice in preventing cheating became apparent within this paper after comparing the benefits of each type side-by-side. Results showed that peer-to-peer architecture not having a trusted centralized authority means that the game needs to rely more on an anti-cheat software to prevent and detect cheating. This paper could not conclude what an appropriate anti-cheat software is because the topic is outside of the scope of this paper and lacks public data. Still, it does raise the question of whether a more aggressive anti-cheat strategy is suitable for a game or not