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Botting in the PC world (from an experienced botters perspective)

AMDPRO
11 minutes ago, porina said:

They have nothing to gain if you assume "any sale is a sale", However they might want to build up goodwill with customers who choose to buy more routine items from them in the future. 

People are mad on launch day, but a week later they'll have gotten over it.

 

Nobody's going to go shop at a particular place 6 months down the road because "they made a messy launch a tiny bit less of a mess".

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Like OP says there is nothing you can do to stop bots. Selling only in brick & mortar is hardly a solution especially in a pandemic.

 

Bots have been around for a long time in other products but this it the first time PC gamers are really experiencing it. You'll get over it.

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The only way to stop bots is to make enough stock that they can't buy it all

In real life, I act like I know less about tech than I actually do.

 

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An easy solution would be require use of a two-factor authentication key/dongle for any orders of products that are new releases. 

 

Buyer gets a 4-8 digit  code on the screen, has to input it on the 2 factor thing , then type the 8-16 digits answer into the order form and complete the order. Each 2 factor thing has a unique code/serial built in that is combined with the 4-8 digit input to generate an answer that's only valid for the next few minutes and different than any other hardware key.

It's more or less how i login into my bank's internet banking solution at the moment.

 

To slow down things more, the 2 factor thing could wait 5-15s before returning the code. The code would be valid only for 3-5 minutes and then expires and a new code would be generated.

 

The store could set limits like maximum 3 pairs of shoes from the new stock per day, but maximum 5 pairs per week, or whatever. 

The 2 factor hardware could be sold by a trusted third party, which could require a valid ID and only allow 1-3 hardware keys per person or something like that. If a new hardware key is requested on one ID, one of the previously ordered ones would be disabled. 

 

Sure, a botter could make up a machine that presses the keys of such hardware key and then takes a picture of the answer (after that optional delay) and fill in the form automatically, but that's not the point ... the point is that hardware key identifies the person, and each person can buy only one or let's say up to 3 (family pack or whatever)

 

In volume, such hardware dongles would cost 10-20 euro, maybe even less.

 

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Bots in multiplayer games though. Now those can be funny at times. Well... not if you're stuck with all your teammates being bots.

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