windows 10 Microsoft is apparently planning something called the "Game Monitor" for Windows 10 which could be their own system-wide anti-cheating software

[Anio!]

Apparently Microsoft is planning to introduce their own anti-cheating software. In the new Windows 10 Insider Preview build 16199, a new tab in the system settings was added which looks like this:

 

 

Microsoft did not announce anything about the "Game Monitor" except that at the moment, it is not anything else than a dummy tab:

Quote

Note: Windows Insiders will see a “Game Monitor” page under Settings > Gaming for potential future functionality which doesn’t do anything right now.

 

Since the "Game Monitor" tab speaks of "Gaming is more fun when everyone plays fairly", this could very well be something in the direction of an anti-cheating software. Personally think that could be a very interesting approach to the cheating problem which exists in multiple games, mostly CSGO, because Microsoft has the ability to add anti-cheating measures integrated very deeply into Windows which cheating programs might not be able to bypass. However, the current dummy tab is only talking about "sharing system info", which is not really very specific since "system info" could be anything. Still very interesting that Microsoft has something in development which could potentially be a new force against cheats.

 

Quote from the WCCFTech article:

Quote

The note about “fair play” seems to be a pretty clear reference to Game Monitor being an anti-cheat system. Cheating to this day is still a problem in some PC games, so if Game Monitor turned out to be effective then everyone regularly playing competitive multiplayer games would stand to gain (well, except the cheaters themselves).

 

However, since Game Monitor would “share system information with games using this feature”, it’s not hard to imagine that this could potentially turn out to be an anti-piracy/DRM tool as well. Some will surely be wary of sharing system information; it looks like it should be possible to disable Game Monitor at any time, but then again Microsoft warns that turning it off may “limit the games you can play”.

 

Sources:

http://wccftech.com/game-monitor-anti-cheat-windows-10/

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/05/17/announcing-windows-10-insider-preview-build-16199-pc-build-15215-mobile/#TOQGHB0UGaxaRHpJ.97

[Wolther]

... no, sounds terrible and I hope it never gains support. Cheating will always be a problem and will never entirely be fixed. On steam they have been developing anti-cheat for a decade and a half and they STILL cannot stop every alternative people take to cheat. There will always be a work around and giving up our privacy/control to windows (even more than we have) with no positive outcome is not something I want. Leave the anti-cheat to game devs, do not make it OS-based. 

 

Anything that has "monitor" and Microsoft in the same topic I will stay away from. 

 

(also, just realized every previous ver. of windows doesn't have "Game Monitor" so if not having it enabled prevents you from playing the game, wouldn't every ver. of windows before also prevent you from playing?)

[Sauron]

Let us gather and share even more information on what your computer is doing with complete strangers! That sounds like a great idea!

[SageOfSpice]

Agh. I hate shit like this. All these types of software do are cause legitimate players trouble.

[PlayStation 2]

I mean if it works better than VAC I'll take it.

[The Benjamins]

51 minutes ago, Wolther said:

(also, just realized every previous ver. of windows doesn't have "Game Monitor" so if not having it enabled prevents you from playing the game, wouldn't every ver. of windows before also prevent you from playing?)

I would assume it only covers UWP games from the Win store. and it also seems it would be upto the game dev to require it. so I feel like you can keep it off.

[Jito463]

14 minutes ago, The Benjamins said:

I would assume it only covers UWP games from the Win store. and it also seems it would be upto the game dev to require it. so I feel like you can keep it off.

Most likely it would start out as an optional feature.  If adoption takes off, then I could see it becoming more mandatory by the developers using it, but consider the number of years that would take.  Any game developer out there who makes this mandatory, would risk alienating every gamer not running this build of Windows 10 or higher, because they'd have no way to play the game (at least, not in multiplayer).  That's a lot of potentially lost sales.  The only time I could see this happening, is if there was an exclusive XBox/Windows release that MS negotiated or that came out of the MS game dev studio (assuming that still exists).

[Sniperfox47]

Yeah as others have said this seems to be intended as a way to suck devs into uwp and windows in general just like DX11/12 and .net we're intended to do in the past.

 

They're trying to make their OS and proprietary tools as attractive to game devs as possible so that it's that little bit harder to port to other systems and keeps games on their platform, thereby keeping users on their platform.

 

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if in the next few years we saw an even tighter DRM integration between Windows 10 and the store too, just to take it even a step further to draw developers to a platform where they can better avoid piracy.

[Dabombinable]

With Windows 10 Game Mode itself causing performance issues in some games already, what's the bet that the Game Monitor would have similar issues.

[LAwLz]

Oh great... Another way for Microsoft to collect information about me.

Yet another thing I will have to turn off on a clean install of Windows. I wonder if this feature will actually get turned off when you set it to off, or if it's like the countless of options in Windows 10 that actually keep running in the background regardless of which settings you got.

[mr moose]

It'll become a thing,  Dev's claim they lose millions in sales because cheats put people of playing/renewing subs etc.  If they can basically prevent you from playing until you enable windows to act as a game cop then they will.

 

My personal opinion, so long as no personally identifiable information is sent back to the dev I'm happy.  Gold spammers piss me off royal in many games. 

[Mihle]

I watch in to my crystal globe.

I see that if any games use game monitor, it will either have a lot of false positives, or it will catch almost no one.

[GoodBytes]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

Let us gather and share even more information on what your computer is doing with complete strangers! That sounds like a great idea!

What stranger? It says that the OS will collect info and send that to the supported game running. To me, I mean, we will know in the future when more details are revealed, but to far, based on the description, it is all local.

Anti-Cheat Game System does the same... it is a process that run, collects system info, such as process names, and monitor memory and send that the info to the game. The game takes it, and sees if another process reads and write stuff to the game memory or not, and takes action.

[GoodBytes]

22 minutes ago, Mihle said:

I watch in to my crystal globe.

I see that if any games use game monitor, it will either have a lot of false positives, or it will catch almost no one.

I think it will depend on how the game processes the information received. I don't think it goes "Hey, Game!, Hey! Yea... Cheater!". It says that it only collects info and feeds to the game. Basically, does a small amount of work for the devs. The game still needs to process it all. Being the OS, it might be able to do things that a standard user elevated account can't, but that is about it.

[Sauron]

8 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

What stranger? It says that the OS will collect info and send that to the supported game running. To me, I mean, we will know in the future when more details are revealed, but to far, based on the description, it is all local.

Anti-Cheat Game System does the same... it is a process that run, collects system info, such as process names, and monitor memory and send that the info to the game. The game takes it, and sees if another process reads and write stuff to the game memory or not, and takes action.

It reveals plenty of information to the game. How long will it take before Ubisoft & co start using it to farm your computing habits as well?

[GoodBytes]

2 minutes ago, Sauron said:

It reveals plenty of information to the game. How long will it take before Ubisoft & co start using it to farm your computing habits as well?

Well, do you prefer Microsoft to do it? Or do you prefer Ubisoft & co make a Service and does the same, as it can at that level. And then instead of having 1 thing to worry about, you have 20 of them with the different versions for each games, from each publishers

[ResidentRad]

I love the mental gymnastics I'm seeing in trashing this feature. It potentially can replace VAC, Punkbuster, Battleeye as well as every other obscure and niche and convoluted anti cheat software there is. 

 

How can you argue against one more method in stopping cheaters? How is that a bad thing? Its a crime that MS is the one doing it? But its okay as it is now, with multiple companies having to develop anti cheat measures that hook into who knows what of your system? This is just shifting that burden away from a developer and making it a part of the OS, since almost all hacks for games work off very well known methods. 

 

I have no problem with putting cheaters in their place. Today actually, just playing Rainbow 6 for a couple of hours, I saw the "BattleEye has banned..." half a dozen times. Same in BF4/BF1, seeing the "user has been banned" in the text box. Its great. I want my online games to remain clean and on the same level, and if MS is offering up a way to maintain that and lessen the work a developer or publisher or 3rd party software company has to do; this is a bad thing? 

 

Or is this just more knee jerking because its Windows 10 and its collecting something? 

 

3 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Well, do you prefer Microsoft to do it? Or do you prefer Ubisoft & co make a Service and does the same, as it can at that level. And then instead of having 1 thing to worry about, you have 20 of them with the different versions for each games, from each publishers

 

Its simply because MS is the one doing it, not because they actually care about collected information. Right now, depending on how many games you have from various publishers, you could have multiple anti cheat systems on your computer. BattleEye, VAC, Punkbuster, nProtect, Warden, Battlenet 2.0; so somehow these kids have gotten into their heads that letting multiple companies each with a different set of software have access to your system vs. Microsoft doing it at the OS level. I am truly baffled by this logic. 

[mr moose]

7 minutes ago, Sauron said:

It reveals plenty of information to the game. How long will it take before Ubisoft & co start using it to farm your computing habits as well?

Like I said before, I think game devs will jump on it,   unless of course the market boycotts it so much that game devs lose more money than allowing the cheats. 

 

Consumer demands always rules the roost,  while you have people who are happy with it it will exist, while we have people happy to buy half finished games then devs will push out shit and call it (under development,  When people stop using a product then that product dies (Like beta video cassettes because although technically a superior technology the consumer demand called the shots).   And finally the big one Organic food and non GMO products, people demand them so they exist, even though there is no evidence they are healthier and costs fuck loads more.

 

In the end the gaming market will dictate how successful this is.  Because the reality is MS do not have the same respect Steam has. 

[Jito463]

59 minutes ago, Mihle said:

I watch in to my crystal globe.

I see that if any games use game monitor, it will either have a lot of false positives, or it will catch almost no one.

What?  I'm sure they got the same devs who worked on Windows Defender to write this anti-cheat.  What could possibly go wrong? 

[Jito463]

23 minutes ago, ResidentRad said:

But its okay as it is now, with multiple companies having to develop anti cheat measures that hook into who knows what of your system? This is just shifting that burden away from a developer and making it a part of the OS, since almost all hacks for games work off very well known methods.

Here's my issue with it.  As it stands now, anti-cheats (AC) are invariably flawed.  There's always someone who's going to find some way around them.  It's no different than with anti-viruses, there's always a way around them.

 

At least at the current time, having multiple companies all working on different approaches to AC means there's a measure of competition between them.  Who can do the best job of protecting a given game, without causing false positives.  It forces the various AC providers to innovate and consider new methods.  If all that was provided by a single source (MS), what would drive them to think differently and innovate?

 

Consider the recent discussion caused by Ryzen, and the way it's revealed just how much Intel has failed to innovate because of lack of competition.  Lack of competition breeds complacency.  Complacency leads to lazy development (or poor management who take away resources needed to innovate/develop).

 

Maybe I'm over-sensationalizing things.  Maybe this will be like Windows Defender, and it will simply be a built-in option that's not mandatory.  It is worth considering, though.  Who's to say that MS wouldn't one day decide that - for security purposes - they would block external, 3rd party AC (or at least ones that didn't utilize their "Game Monitor" service) to prevent "rogue AC" programs from "causing havoc" with Windows?

 

Just some food for thought.

[Foxxer]

Don't think it will work unless, it sniffs injected media prior game lunch. 

[mr moose]

11 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

  Who's to say that MS wouldn't one day decide that - for security purposes - they would block external, 3rd party AC (or at least ones that didn't utilize their "Game Monitor" service) to prevent "rogue AC" programs from "causing havoc" with Windows?

 

Just some food for thought.

 

Many believe they already do this with other applications.  I think the reality is MS have to balance keeping their product stable and secure alongside fair and legal all the time keeping it a profitable venture.   A task I don't envy.  

[laminutederire]

3 hours ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

I mean if it works better than VAC I'll take it.

There's a button you can successfully click on and it changes appearance, doesn't that account for working better than VAC?