Steam Deck

You could say the same about door locks. It's not going to stop a thief who wants to get in from getting in. So why even have a lock on the door? Because it will prevent nosey people from getting in.

Similarly anticheat won't prevent anyone dedicated to cheating, but it does prevent the "script kiddies" who would cheat if it was super easy.

There are always ways around anticheat. Why do companies demand Ring 0 access anyway?

Because it makes detecting cheats running on the same machine easier. Sadly many companies don't care much about it's users privacy and security ideals.

So why kill your customers with anticheat acting like a spyware for something they will never solve.

Sadly there's enough people/content creators who ask for kernel level anti cheats. It comes up from time to time in Overwatch and CS communities, especially the latter. The amount of people like us, who purposely don't play a game for it's invasive ac is likely really small.

People go and play CS checking whether the enemy is likely cheating, while people are playing Valorant believing cheaters will be detected. This makes them less likely to cry "cheater" over a few lucky shots.

There are cheats that only read the screen, they don't even need to run on the same PC.

On consoles external cheat devices are popular today. They allow for mouse and keyboard usage while also having the controller aim assist, as they spoof an official controller.

It'll be interesting how long it takes until ML assisted cheats plug in between pc and monitor. Will Vanguard forbid capture cards at this point?