We outsmarted CSGO cheaters with IdentityLogger

Cheating in online games is a scourge and I really don't understand why people do it. It's one person selfishly getting a "win" at the expense of ~60 other people in that match having their time, pleasure, potentially money absolutely wasted.

I think even more infuriating than blatant hacking is this epidemic of "micro cheating" for lack of a better way to put it that I've seen prevalent in some games that just boost some stats or reactions by amounts large enough to help the cheater but low enough where new or inexperienced players have absolutely no way of telling if someone is cheating or genuinely good especially in games with high skill ceilings. At least when it's blatant you can leave without time wasted but when they're doing it subtly you end up getting tilted and spending the whole match with a bad taste in your mouth second guessing if someone is actually playing fair or not. Chivalry 2 is a really bad offender for this, once you notice it you can't unnotice it anymore, almost every match will have at least one guy with his swing/move speed adjusted by ~10% and in a game where swing manipulation is a legitimate mechanic it can be borderline impossible to catch someone out on it unless you're really paying attention.

In the case of CSGO, playing means earning lootboxes, and the items contained therein can be resold / auctioned off. It's the same problem as in Diablo 3 when it first launched, you could sell items found (randomly) in-game for real money. I read one guy's project, I'm sure it was posted on HN, who had 25 bots / copies of the game running to monitor the in-game currency market for deals, then resell those for real money.

Every once in a while there would be a ban wave - implying bot detection and handling was a manual / batch job process - but he'd just get 25 new copies / accounts, the income he made was more than enough to make up for it.

Of course, that assumes he was able to funnel the money out quick enough. And also, both Valve and Blizzard have their own incentive to not be too hard on bots, as they get a cut for every transaction. As long as people don't stop playing / paying because of bots.