HonkingGoose
commented
6 years ago @kisak-valve I hope this is the right place to post it. If not you may close the issue. I just wanted to put this out there, so that the issue can be tracked.
I have also just found from https://steamcommunity.com/games/221410/announcements/detail/1696055855739350561 that:
Q: Are there any games that will never work with Proton?
It's likely that some games using complex DRM or anti-cheat systems will be difficult, or even impossible to support.
I also saw that you closed issue #1446 as out-of-scope. So it might be that my issue is also out-of-scope... or otherwise be labeled as "won't fix".
gbdlin
kisak-valve
massatt212
simonvanderveldt
M-Reimer
Feature Request
I confirm:
Description
Some way to prove to the automatic anti-cheat systems that Proton is not being used to cheat.
Or some kind of whitelist for Proton, so that the simple fact of using Proton is not enough to get you flagged as cheater.
Justification
The problem is that, currently, using any kind of emulation/compatibility layer can lead to getting hard-banned or soft banned. This leaves legit players out in the cold, they are not cheating, but might lose access to playing a game entirely (hard-ban), or are only allowed to play with other people labeled as cheaters (soft-ban).
Many online games have some kind of cheat-detection system, which triggers when using Proton/Wine/DXVK etc. So this problem is not in any way exclusive to Proton itself.
Enabling Linux users to safely play online without fear of getting banned will, I think, be helpful to improving Linux user-base on Steam. But how much the user-base would increase, I don't know.
Possible routes to getting a solution:
Now I have given this some thought, and have come up with two solutions.
First way:
Somehow convince stakeholders (game-developers/anti-cheat makers/publishers/moderators) to whitelist Proton use. Really simplified:
This appeal, I think, has limited believably and sustainability. There will always be trolls, cheaters, etc. who will abuse Proton to cheat. Let's assume that the Proton whitelist will be granted, that the appeal works; people will still find a way to cheat. The well will be poisoned by those users, and we're back to square one: Proton users are banned on sight.
Way the second:
Implement some kind of technical proof that Proton is not used to cheat.
Maybe something like GPG-keys and SHA256SUMS can be used to prove that the Proton install is legit and wasn't tampered with. However we will also need to prove during run-time that nothing is hooking into Proton to cheat. This will likely prove to be a hard problem to solve.
The end-game here would probably be developing new anti-cheat measures for Proton or implementing existing anti-cheat solutions (such as Steam's VAC system) into Proton. I have a feeling that both of those will be out-of-scope for the Proton development team.
Risks
References
This issue affects games which are wholly online or have online components and use some form of anti-cheat system.
I've linked issues for games which seem to be affected by not having EAC, or other forms of anti-cheat integrated into Proton.
Conclusion
I'm fully aware that solving this problem might be out-of-scope for the Proton team itself. Any solution will also require buy-in from others, and this might cost a lot of time/effort/money.