Because without full access to your PC, anti-cheat is essentially useless and easily bypassed by cheaters.

This is false.

Many functional AntiCheats work well without Kernel Level access... and many Kernel Level AntiCheats... are routinely bypassed by common, easily purchaseable hacks... which, again, only work on Windows.

I used to play GTA V Online (and RDR2, and FiveM, and RedM…) on linux all the time, literally for years… untill they just decided to ban all linux players.

Because of cheaters.

That's not an idea that anyone is saying though, other than you right now.

Uh... you are also basically saying this, with that combination of statements.

So... please refrain from obviously contradictory, gas lighting arguements, thanks!

Anyway: GTAV uses BattleEye.

BattleEye works on Linux.

Rockstar just ... chose not to use that Linux support.

It's also one of the only ways to try to stop cheaters.

There are many other ways to stop cheaters that are quite effective, namely, actually designing your game more competently and more cleverly, with less client side authority and more server side authority, less intrusive system client side AC that is more reliant on randomized realtime logging and verifications of game files, server side hereustics that pick up 'impossible' player input patterns, etc.

You know, all the other methods that have been used for decades, and still work.

No AntiCheat method will ever be 100% effective.

As I already mentioned, Kernel Level AntiCheats are defeated all the time, and you can easily find and purchase such cheats/hacks... which only work on Windows... after maybe 30 minutes of web searching or jumping around discord communities.

Beyond that, its not that hard or expensive to setup your own, or just purchase a tiny microcomputer that plugs into your PC, then you plug your mouse/keyboard into that, and then the microPC middleman performs aim hacks and otherwise impossible movement macros like stuttersteps and such.

Kernel ACs are routinely defeated by competent executions of this concept.

You can never stop all hackers.

It is always a trade off of exactly how much you inconvenience and degrade the system integrity/stability/security of the user, versus how many hackers you believe you are likely to stop.

...

Kernel Level AntiCheat is basically going to 99.99% effective from previous methods being 99.9% effective... and the cost is literally you are now installing a rootkit on your own system that could very well be reading all your web history and saved logins and passwords.

The code is black box, and tech companies lie all the time about how much data they gather from you... and then sell to every data broker they can.

The only actual numbers and statistics anyone has to work with, when justifying or arguing against effectiveness levels of different kinds of AC... are the claims put out by AC companies.

And even then, most people, such as yourself, aren't even aware of or refuse to acknowledge that AntiCheats have worked on linux for years.

It is a "something is wrong with linux" issue if Linux doesn't allow/provide for something that game developers - and game players - want, which is anti-cheat that does the absolute best it can to stop cheaters.

I see how you just completely did not address how I stated that EAC and BattleEye both support linux, other ACs have and still do as well.... certain game publishers just don't use these features that have existed for years.

Valve Anti Cheat, for example?

You can find more info if you look, but I'm guessing you won't.

You just have an idea, of 'the idea'.

Have you ever written a hack?

Written game netcode, and other client/server game code?

... I have! ... back when I still used Windows, ironically.

Best way to test your own design is to try to defeat it.

...

Installing a rootkit onto your personal computer... to protect you from hackers in a game... is like trying to fight a stomach flu you got from Taco Bell by intentionally infecting yourself with Covid.

Oh and uh, after the whole... CrowdStrike fiasco, where Windows just allowed CrowdStike to write and update kernel level code without actually doing their own testing or validation... and then they pushed a bad update... and that took out basically 1/4 of the world's enterprise Windows machines for a week or two?

Yeah... Windows is now removing direct kernel level access from third party software.

They're making everything move up a level or two, kind of inventing a new interface layer/paradigm...

Becauase it is in fact, empirically, objectively, way, way, waaaay too dangerous to just let every 'verified' third party partner fuck with the kernel.

So... your idea of 'the idea' of Kernel Level AC is no longer valid, as it is no longer able to run at such a low layer, and will thus be more vulnerable to... the kinds of hacks Kernel Level AC is supposed to be necessarry for dealing with.