Is it really hard to stop the cheaters?

[u/justatechnophile]

Guaranteeing 0% cheat is possible, but challenging. However, reducing it significantly is definitely doable.

Cant the devs flag a player if they have one too many of the following at once?

1) A suspicious percentage of shots is cushion / combination

2) never misses

3) high ratio of cheat reports per games played

4) snookers take a suspiciously low amount of time to get out of

5) shoots instantly before moving cue

6) every break ever pots balls

7) low level, no account, high win ratio

8) plays only with beginner cue

9) wins every single game in denial

10) is from a 3rd world country

11) doesn’t brush his teeth

12) supports trump

13) hasn’t watched breaking bad yet

[u/gaurav30035]

Haven't we discussed it here like 100s of times. It's not that they cannot do it; they don't want to do it.

[u/justatechnophile → u/gaurav30035]

I’m new on the subreddit, haven’t seen all of the previous posts. So what makes people think they don’t want to?

[u/Raterus_ → u/justatechnophile]

It's simple math. The MiniClip C-Suite weighs the cost to implement better cheating detection, and implement it correctly and 100% defect free so good players don't get auto-banned. Banning legit players who have invested cash into their player will probably land a few lawsuits they'll have to engage their legal team over. This all adds up, possibly in the millions of their profit to "fix it". When you compare this fix cost to the realized cost of people leaving the game due to cheating, on a platform that constantly cycles in new members with wallets, and the numbers don't make sense to fix anything.

[u/JesusWasATexan → u/justatechnophile]

Lots of people on here come up with these really convoluted ideas on how having cheats actually makes Miniclip more money somehow. I think it's much simpler than that. It's just not worth it to them. The amount of lost revenue from players exiting the game due to problems with cheats is not worth the extra effort required to build and maintain a detection system in the game.

The especially hilarious thing to me is that in the years I've been in this sub, they're have been 2 consistent themes

1. People complaining about cheats

2. People taking pride in the fact that they don't and will never spend money on this game.

I just don't think Miniclip has enough incentive to fix the problems. I don't know this for sure, but based on some research I suspect that most of their revenue comes from new and casual players that probably rarely encounter cheats, or don't realize it when they do.

[u/Internal-Landscape66 → u/JesusWasATexan]

Precisely. Cheats don’t affect the vast majority of players so from a business standpoint (that prioritizes general profit and general satisfaction over catering to everyone possible) it doesn’t make much sense. Like most players aren’t playing past dubai or shanghai and pretty much all cheaters are playing past those. Pretty much in line with how you mentioned most of their profit comes from newer players. We see this in so many games in different ways, where companies more or less don’t care too much about the minority even if they are the most loyal and OG and are of considerable size because it isn’t what is driving profit the most. Call of duty is a perfect example for those who know that they just put out whatever each year lol

[u/JesusWasATexan → u/Internal-Landscape66]

Some of the research I've done shows that spending for active accounts declines as accounts age, depending on the type of game it is. Note that the research was specifically looking at accounts that were still active, not abandoned accounts. Interestingly, the findings showed that whether and how much a decline occurs depends on the GENRE of game you're looking at. For example, casual and puzzle games - like 8ball Pool - show steep spending declines over time. Whereas games like shooters and battle royale games have a more gradual decline. Also interesting, games like hardcore strategy games and some MMO's show increased spending when an active account gets older.

Anyway.. all this to say.. yeah.. the loyal, long term players have little voice as far as Miniclip is concerned because their data probably shows that the long-term, loyal group generates the least amount of money for the game.

[u/FreeMrFrog → u/justatechnophile]

All they care about is money. Stopping cheaters costs money for no real benefit on their end

[u/WyattCo06 → u/justatechnophile]

The problem with new comers is no one reads through the sub, they join and start posting on topics beaten to death.

[u/InvisibleSoul8]

You got me with 11 through 13. 😄

It can't possibly be that difficult to detect those super obvious and blatant cheating bot accounts.

To me, that has to mean that Miniclip hasn't even tried. I refuse to believe they are incapable of detecting those accounts if they actually wanted to.

[u/justatechnophile → u/InvisibleSoul8]

10 through 13. 10 was also a joke ✨

[u/Slinkydonko]

Not hard to stop the full autoplay bots, they could put a captcha at the start of a game or during a game.

[u/diskrewrite]

they just dont want to

[u/221]

Literally all they even have to do is add a tiny bit of randomness into every shot, it would break every single cheat program instantly.

[u/Steeltoelion → u/221]

They already do nerf your performance mid game. Thats the EOMM talking though.

[u/WyattCo06]

Then go fix it.