On CH Cheating Scandal

Context for this post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_no3Rh9Ibhg

source one: Karl Jobst video on cheating in trackmania: https://youtu.be/Ww7x5elophk?t=906
source two: Karl Jobst on cheating in video games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFrQ1_2bbsI

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Hello,

Disclosure: I don't personally know Schmooey or anyone who lost money/was taken advantage of in this entire event. My intentions are to provide commentary as objectively as possible on the mindset of the broader GH community. Enjoy.

In light of the recent cheating scandal that has come out in the Clone Hero community, this should serve as a wake up call for all forms of competitive Guitar hero to make their rules/proof standards more rigorous. Especially when money is on the line. The Guitar Hero community has been vulnerable to a scandal like this for a long time. At the end of the day, we have largely relied on a system of trust and credibility to know if someone is legit or not. This has now been proven to not be exhaustive and something that can be taken advantage of.

The standards going forward should resemble that of speedrunning communities. In particular, I'd like to highlight a video made by Karl Jobst (source one above). Long story short, people were abusing speedhacks in Trackmania and the result is that everyone must install a certified anti-cheat patch for runs to be valid. I have seen that something like this appears to be in development so that is good news.

This is outside of my area of expertise, but the end goal should be something along these lines:
- The Clone Hero community should create an anti-cheat software patch.
- The Clone Hero game itself should have some built in detection system for identifying this patch.
- Clone Hero should clearly display somewhere that the game is being ran without the software.
	- To consider: How can this be implemented such that the display can't be spliced in or out (log files, etc). It may be necessary that some sort of verification process/committee is created to enforce this.
- Could also implement showing icon tray after a run to show current applications that are running.

In closing, I hope we can fully grow out of our old ways of thinking that are no longer compatible with mitigating today's cheating capabilities. And most of all, that something concrete is done so that it doesn't happen again. On that note, I'll leave you with a final thought from Karl Jobst on why people cheat (source two above):

"It may seem counterintuitive, but you'd be surprised at how often some of the best players inevitably try to fake runs. You might think that having the talent to achieve a world record would make someone less susceptible to cheating, but it often works against them. Having talent tends to make people feel entitled. They feel like they deserve the world record. And when the game they play doesn't give them the luck they need, they become increasingly frustrated. On top of this, having talent and deep knowledge of a game makes you a better cheater. You know what tools to use and how to hide your edits. You understand what does or doesn't make sense, what is or isn't possible, and what's believable."..."The fact that better players make better cheaters means that arguments such as 'he's such a good player he has no reason to cheat' are fundamentally flawed. When Billy Mitchel and Todd Rogers were exposed as frauds, this was one of the most common arguments their defenders tried to make. If anything, having a better understanding of a game makes you more likely to cheat. This is why, at the top level, proof standards are so important."

Thanks for reading,
Kev.