What do copy protection schemes and anti-cheat software have in common? They both suck, and they inconvenience the legitimate user more than the software pirate. My adventure with Punkbuster continues. This abortion is supposed to prevent people from cheating in online games by allowing the software to scan your computer for codes that are, well, cheat-y. In this sense, it acts like an antivirus, but in a far more invasive way.
You install Punkbuster as an option along with certain games. Check out the wikipedia article for a list of those games. That’s the last time that your opinion will be taken into account regarding this program. Even after uninstalling Call of Duty 4, which is the only game I have that runs Punkbuster, PnkbstrA.exe still remained in Task Manager. There is no option to remove this, and Activision did not have the simple courtesy to uninstall the thing along with your copy of COD.
This is scary. After all, there is no way for the user to remove this thing even when there is an act that implied that they don’t want it. It goes on, hogging CPU resources even when you just play the single-player features. My previous post shows how to remove it, but it involves tweaking with things in XP best left alone.
To think that most multiplayer gamers are casual ones who do not know how to code anything, much less a sophisticated cheat system. I don’t know if cheaters have beaten Punkbuster already, but most likely, they have. Just like software pirates are able to beat the most sophisticated of copy protection schemes. The thing is, it becomes easier to use the illegal products more than the legal ones. I’m not saying that companies should abandon copy protection and anti-cheat schemes, but can’t they find a way to do it in a less obtrusive way? Concerning anti-cheat procedures specifically, will it be too much to ask them to do it unobtrusively, with the consent of the player all the way? We paid good money to play, and that should be respected. Even if they continue to claim the game as their property, the computer is OUR property, not theirs, not by any stretch of imagination by highly-paid IP lawyers.
Why not use PB as a regular program that can scan for cheats, where they would prevent a user from playing in multiplayer mode unless the scans are done and/or PB is activated at that moment of play? It’s not that hard, I guess. Looking at my blog stats, my previous post was pretty popular with people all over the Internet checking it out on how to remove Punkbuster. Perhaps you can leave a comment and tell me what you think.
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