Deathmatch for Dollars?

quixado writes "You Play Games is an online wager service where you can bet and earn money for each kill or injury to opponents. You can even cap how much money you can lose in a 24 hour period. Return to Castle Wolfenstein is the first title. The press release can be found here. More info here too. And they said that spending days on end playing first person shooters wouldn't pay off..."

Cheaters?

How will they deal with aimbots and other cheats?

custom client

A custom binary like seti@home perhaps?

Re:custom client

From the article:

"Wolfenstein will be required to have the latest version of Even Balance's PunkBuster Anti-Cheat software on their systems in order to compete."

Re:custom client

And how exactly does that contradict the point that at some point, maybe even now, there are or will be ways to cheat PunkBuster?

Re:custom client

A custom binary like seti@home perhaps?

that didnt stop the cheaters [wired.com] of seti ,and this is a project where no one wins a cent,

disassembling/RE gets a lot more serious when cash is involved.

Re:custom client

Yeah, but a hack where you made it look like a full scale alien invasion was just on the other side of the moon using the SETI data you cracked we be some funny shit.

Re:Cheaters?

I've written my own aimbots for unreal tournament. Game servers are great against publically released bots, but if you don't release your bot, they can't prevent it. I sat on my bot for a month before making it public, and if I didn't you would have never seen CSHP (Client side hack protection) in Unreal Tournament.

The problem isn't just Unreal Tournament either, I've used bots in Quake 2, Quake 3, and CounterStrike. The funny part is, CounterStrike probably has some of the best hack protection of any of the games, and it's spawned probably the best bots of all the games. While the Q2 bot I used was the most accurate, the CS bot had a sick amount of features.

This is the main problem with online gaming, and why arcades could make a comeback. There is just no real way to make sure the person on the other side isn't cheating. Plus most games vendors don't put too much effort into protecting and patching cheats. It is usually the community, so it turns into amature hour.

I personally play a lot of online games. I love the idea of winning money for them, but I don't see it lasting very long.

I wonder though, now if I code my own aimbot for a game they "pay you to play" could I be put in jail for fraud?

-NoClanNeeded

Re:Cheaters?

Very good point. Cheaters are a major issue for this kind of thing as aimbots / healthbots / radar / invis and other cheats can't be stopped anyway I know of other than physically controlling the computer the player is using. Every attempt at cutting out the cheaters only falls victim to better cheat code. Like trying to create an unpickable lock; you just can't do it.

Re:Cheaters?

Remember the game "DOOM"? It was peer to peer. Every (up to all 8 of them!) client talked to every other client, and all of them ran the same numbers. If one of the peers disagreed with the others it was booted.
This model was discarded in favour of the now-popular server-client model because latency (not bandwidth) was too high.

Anyone that played Quake 1.01-1.09 on the 'net over a modem can tell you how horrible latency was even with this 'leap forward' in network gaming.
Nowadays, the client & server use prediction & syncing to give the appearance of smooth play.

Unfortunately, the amount of bandwith won't compensate for the latency, and I doubt that anything short of a direct, raw connection to the 'server' will allow a 'video only' feed.

Re:Cheaters?

Probably through some statistical analysis of your game-play. I had a co-worker who used to play 'minesweeper' on-line. He was *damn* good, and the site accused him of cheating and disabled his account (thinking no-one was *that* good).

Not always perfect, but cheaters *do* tend to be greedy, and would be obvious to spot.

streaky

I wanna second this sentiment. I used to play counter-strike, and luck, circumstances, and exceptional performance occasionally conspired to give me marvelous streaks where I would go from slightly above average (a few more kills than deaths) to having kills>(deaths*4) It was like they just walked right into my crosshairs.

I remember one incident in particular. I was using the P90, which has the highest rate of fire and therefore sprays pretty wildly. It isn't used much because its hard to hit anything out past 15 feet. But the wild spray pattern is predictable; the muzzle rises up and then waves side to side in a T pattern. If you encounter someone 5 to 12 feet away from you and aim around their bellybutton, you can be off right or left but one of the 3rd-6th bullets will hit them in the head. It is a legal "trick" of limited use. So, back to the incident, I was using the P90 and kept encountering the same 1-3 guys in the same hallway at the same "sweet-spot" range, with the same results. After the 3rd time I head-shot the same guy, he just came unglued. He was absolutely furious and swore on his life that I was using an aim-bot, and kept asking everyone to kick me saying he had "proof" I was cheating. They stopping trying to come through that hallway, which meant I would run into people who were not in the "sweet spot" so I stopped getting head-shots, which our man said further proved I had been using an aim-bot and had now turned it off.

To any sort of statistical analysis, it would look like cheating whenever an "average" player goes off on a tear.

I think the only real way to stop cheating is to control the computers, physically. Punkbuster like systems do help, but they don't stop it completely. There is no way I would ever wager money against strangers over the internet on video games.

Easy

You want to cheat when playing for real money? We'll come to your house and shoot you with real bullets.

Re:Cheaters?

Bit like your average software developer in a way...

Deathmatch, the profession

It's about time. Big tournaments are cool, but more regular dollars are needed if it's going to be a viable profession.

Re:Deathmatch, the profession

Should it be a viable profession?

I don't see why not. If big dumb dudes can make millions by tossing a ball around a few hours a week, I don't see why a gamer shouldn't be able to make at least a few dollars by using his skills. 3D accelerator card makers may even pick a few of the best players to help promote their products.

Re:Deathmatch, the profession

Already happened. NVIDIA is sponsoring Team3d, a clan that won last years Cyberathletes Professionals League (think big lan party with huge prizes running a game ladder). see team3d.net [team3d.net] for more info

Gaming for $$$, old news.

NASCAR gamers have been doing this for years at http://www.p-r-o-s.net/.

I can see it now...

...frag the Boxing Monkey and win FREE Money!$!$!$ the horror, the horror....

expected results

id Software has always been on the forefront of gaming, ever since the original Castle Wolfenstien. It's no surprise that they now are the first to offer gambling based on this style of gaming. It's also a good idea that they decided to break up the cost per death/frag by skill levelled matches, however I wonder what qualifies a person to compete in a certain skill level?

I only have two questions now:
1) What legal implications will this bring about? Think about it: parents wanted to sue Wizards of the Coast and Nintendo because they thought Pokemon cards were a form of gambling.
2) Approximately how long until I lose (note correct usage of the word) my last $5?

Re:expected results

Correction - Parents *did* sue Wizards of the Coast and Nintendo over child-gambling charges (the State department looked at it, told the parents they were on their own). Let's make the distinction here: Public gambling is *always* well-regulated; I doubt anyone will be able to touch this venture where terms of legality are concerned.

Not the first

Ultimate Arena [ultimatearena.com] already does that.

My biggest problem with online games

I used to play online games when they first came out (Quake, Unreal, etc).

But then I discovered that what Dave Barry once said was true:

On the Internet, everybody is only twelve years old.

For a time, I played some good old Capture The Flag Quake - loved that game. But too many "Hey, motherfucker DarkPaladin! You're gay!" when you start doing well, or "Fucking cheat!" when you kill somebody, etc, etc, etc.

I mean - that's just no fun. Most people online are assholes - they live in the games like Everquest, Ultima Online, Unreal Tournament - all of them. If I play games these days, its only with either myself or people that I know.

Sadly, the "average person" is the biggest ruining factor for online gaming. Then again, after watching my teenage nephews play games, it's almost made me want to ban anybody under the "mental" age of 18 from playing games. At least until they learn to RTFM. (That's another subject for another day.)

Re:My biggest problem with online games

ITYM "your gay". If I ever saw "You're gay!" - that is, with proper capitalization, spelling and punctuation, I'd probably be so distracted I'd be 0wned the next second later.

Stress levels rising

With the amount of stress some people seem to work up in a simple game not for money, I can't imagine how badly they'll freak out when a few dollars are on the line.

More OMG!1!!!!111 Yuo h4x0r!1!!!!1111 followed by ping floods no doubt.

Link to gambling?

Just like gambling, kids will obsess over trying to win their money back. Limit or not.
When I lose playing blackjack at a casino, the dealer doesn' call me a 'n3wbi3 f4g' and certainly doesn't taunt me to play another game.
I forsee a sharp rise in ping excuses.

Pro Gaming

I dropped out of pro gaming because i wanted to get through college. But there is GOOD money in it, I won 21k in one year, and I was playing games the whole time.

The game i played got bogged down with cheating so they couldnt run any more for money games because cheating was so bad, but it was fun while it lasted.

I don't see this lasting, at least not with RTCW..

I'm suprised ID let themselves get snared into this.

YPG servers are based out of the Netherlands Antilles, a haven for money laundering, major drug trafficking, and organized crime. A major problem for the Antilles at the moment is illegal internet gambling operations. Hosting servers there should raise suspicion immediately. Hell, doing almost anything in the Antilles should raise suspicion...

Other major problems -- RTCW does not have a FFA game mode, only team oriented game modes. This fits very poorly into a competetion model of you-frag-others-for-money.

Imagine how pissed off you're going to be when an idiot teammate does something stupid and costs you money!

Also, this will totally fuck up objective oriented games since players will be so worried with kill/death ratios (because deaths cost you money), that they will totally ignore teamplay (hell, *I* would!)

Quake3 or UT2k3 would be better choices -- not only do they have MUCH larger audiences, but they fit better into the competetion model they have, because Quake3 and UT2k3 have FFA game modes.

Cheaters not a major problem for Joe User

The PunkBuster (PB) system is pretty good, they've put some serious thought into the design of the system, and provided they keep updating it, it should prove sufficient to stop Joe User from cheating.

However, cheating is still possible, but it will come from dedicated cheaters, rather like it does in casinos. Casinos have an advantage though, first they are very rich, and can afford all sorts of checks and balances, and second, players/cheaters are physically present, and therefore can be ID'd. In the online world, noone knows you're a dog, so it will be harder to stop a dedicated cheater from coming back. If the dedicated cheater does not reveal his/her method, then it will be up to the PB team to try and stop it. The PB team have an advantage when the cheat is released in the wild, but not when its kept secret.

PB has the great advantage of being able to update everyones code at any point. So if someone does do a major number on the current PB system, they can simply change it and bingo, all legit users are now running the new code.

The big problem is punishment for cheating. How do you stop a cheater? Kick him out? So he comes back with a new account and continues. You need a way to identify a user. The problem is any ID system will be open to comprimise aswell. The big casinos come down to using people to recognise other peoples faces, and you can't do that online.

If this becomes a very big venture, with real (i'm talking $10000+wins), then the big boys will come along and try to cheat, you'll find they will succeed sometimes.

The difference between this and normal casinos is you aren't playing against the house, so it will be difficult to play and win $10000, unless you find some pretty stupid people. However, lesser sums of $100 or so will be possible. I don't think that these stakes are high enough for the big boys to play for.

Where real money will come from will be when they do have a "house". Playing against computers (the house). They'll have to do it so the house wins >50% like they do at casinos, but it could become very interesting.

In all I think this will become interesting, but not interesting enough to the big boys, so go ahead, play for a few dollars, if you don't make it worthwhile a user risk cheating against you, then they won't.

Re:Cheaters not a major problem for Joe User

The big problem is punishment for cheating. How do you stop a cheater? Kick him out? So he comes back with a new account and continues. You need a way to identify a user. The problem is any ID system will be open to comprimise aswell. The big casinos come down to using people to recognise other peoples faces, and you can't do that online.

If people are going to be gambling online, chances are they're going to have to be paying via CC. Why not use a hash of the credit card number as the unique identifier? Seems like a pretty good way to keep people tied to a single account, and not much risk of exposing the actual card numbers to the outside world.

I play Wolfenstein competitivly

This will fail.

Return To Castle Wolfenstein is the best team game out there. The depth of the multiplayer game is beyond comparison. You would be amazed at the stratagy that goes into it. [attbi.com] (picture example of a strat) RTCW is not a deathmatch.

The problem is that the people who set this service up don't really know what RTCW is all about. RTCW is a TEAM GAME. The Medics support the Lieutenants. The Engineers follow to complete the objective. The Soldiers are a special class for special situations. They all complment each other.

You can't measure performance by kill/death ratio in RTCW. The guy that goes 2-14 can be just as valueable as the guy that goes 10-7. Sometimes, not shooting the other guy and sneaking by him is a benefit in getting to the objective.

Cheating in RTCW is a non-factor. Evenbalance's Punkbuster [evenbalance.com] can stop every cheat out there. It is updated frequently and can actually take a snapshot of your screen and send it to the game server admins. It also checks your games video setting to be sure you don't have an unfair advantage.

The only way this could work is if they changed it to a clan on clan system.

Clan A puts in $100.

Clan B puts in $100.

Winner get $190, service get 10.

I have been on the end of a screaming captain in a game that had no money involved. The things that came out of his mouth could offend german shizer movie star. I don't know if my family would be safe if money were on the line and I did something wrong.

Many clans have folded under pressure of competitve gaming with no money involved. Cyber Amateur League (CAL) [caleague.com] had a league for the elite. CAL-Invitational. After its second season it had to merge with the lower division because the top teams quit.

Professional Killing

I think moving out into the real world is a far pbetter idea. Let's look at the evidence:

• Guns are cheaper than upgrading your PC to work with the latest games.
• It's more exciting.
• The stakes are higher, you are more likely to perform well.
• You won't end up a fat bastard.
• Good money (between £5k and £20k a kill).
• Most of the other people don't have guns.
• Many more...

See? Much better.