It is Riot's job to ensure the integrity of their online video games, no matter how much you like or dislike their video games. In fact, the user base demands it because they don't want to play against cheaters.
That is well and good, and Riot Games would be at fault if they did not. My problem is not with the end, but with the means.
The fact that it's been 6 years and Vanguard is still around shows that there is a group of people (whatever you think of them) willing to compromise their computers in this way to play a video game with whatever competitive integrity it affords.
And I am well within my right not to compromise, and to disagree with them, because it creates a slippery slope that has been discussed at length. First it's this, then it may be something more aggressive, and something that has the potential to compromise the integrity of all users' computers. I get it, it does no permanent harm, the thing it does is on a limited scale, and it fixes something that Windows did not detect.
Now let's say you invite me to your house and I rummage through your valuables, then I rearrange them in whichever way I see fit. I didn't take anything from you. I didn't cause you significant harm. This might have even been to your benefit, you didn't realize that your safe combination was 1111. Would you
consent to it? What guarantees I don't break something by accident? What guarantees nothing gets lost? What guarantees I may not use any information you may have to my benefit?
Would you consent to it
then?
If the answer is no, then you get my point. Your house, your rules. My computer,
my rules.
You might argue that by agreeing to Valorant's EULA, I have agreed to them pushing updates like the one we're discussing. Would you consent to me doing whatever I want with your property for the sole fact that you invited me to your house
once?
What about Valorant is so attractive to you as an individual that the government must get involved to make it palatable by your standards?
Nothing. I don't play Valorant, or any online multiplayer game. I don't require the government to get involved, I only ask it to take action when Riot Games crosses a line, and I would ask the same if it were CAPCOM, Square Enix, Activision-Blizzard or EA.
Not to mention:
there's a power imbalance between some idiot using cheats and a company pushing software that can attack your devices. Malware or no, brick or no, there should be boundaries to what companies can do, and that should be one.
And that is why:
This is an anti-consumer practice. It needs to stop.
>any settings
Does it not seem asinine that for your statement to function, it has to be dumbed down and made less specific? What settings were changed, and how does it affect your PC's operation?
You're already required to have TPM, Core Isolation (Memory Integrity), and whatever else enabled on your computer to play. The precedent is already there.
It's a precedent that
should not exist, and, as evidenced by the backlash, there's a substantial amount of people that don't want there to be
more precedents.
You seem to be reasonable, Vanguard is not messing with the settings of your OS, it's just letting your OS know that some hardware is doing things that it shouldn't, I don't see how this is an anti-consumer practice because their property was not damaged, they can still use it to cheat in other games after reinstalling the OS and firmware of the DMA card,
If they need to reinstall the O.S. and firmware of the DMA card, clearly a damage was done, and that's what makes it anti-consumer. This is made worse by the fact that it was done as an update,
mandatorily and
unilaterally, on the part of Riot Games.
It's safe to say that people did not consent to this when Valorant was first launched, and the fact that there is a backlash against this now is a clear indicator that they would not have consented to it had they known beforehand, regardless of the actual damage done, or whatever Riot Games' intent was. I'm sure it was well-meaning, as much as well-meaning can be for a videogame developer these days, which isn't saying much anyway.
and if they hadn't cheated in the first place this would have never happened, users are willingly installing Vanguard to be able to play, in order to detect cheating it needs ring 0 access, and using said ring 0 access at it did was tell your OS the cheating hardware existed and it was prevented from doing it's thing, Vanguard didn't do it, the OS did what it should in that situation.
Vanguard told the O.S. to do something the O.S. did not originally detect. It's not Riot Games' job to fix O.S. settings, and that seems to be the core issue here.
It's not anti-consumer to tell your OS that you are using a device that's doing something it shouldn't,
That's the thing. It
is. Riot Games took it upon itself to push an update that makes a change to the O.S. settings. That is not their job.
and again, you can keep using that hardware to cheat in other games, nothing was damaged,
I reiterate:
If they need to reinstall the O.S. and firmware of the DMA card, clearly a damage was done, and that's what makes it anti-consumer. This is made worse by the fact that it was done as an update, mandatorily and unilaterally, on the part of Riot Games.
if your argument is that you should be able to use whatever hardware or software you want when playing their games then that's just wrong, they have a right to check if you are cheating, if you don't want that to happen then simply don't play their games, your property rights are not being infringed and if you think they are I would like to hear why you think that.
That is not, and has never been, my argument. I stated I have the right to use hardware in whatever way I like. If that conflicts with Valorant's TOS, then Riot Games are free to ban my account, or my IP, or take any other measure to keep me from playing their game. But they don't have the right to take it upon themselves to determine what my O.S. should do.
Imagine you go to a powerlifting competition wearing a trenchcoat, under it you have a bench shirt, slingshot, knee wraps, elbow wraps, two lever belts and smelling salts, "I'm ready to compete!" you say, then the organizers say that this is an unequipped competition, tell you to take off your trenchcoat (ring 0), and when they see the equipment you have they don't allow you to compete, you still own all of that lifting equipment, you just can't use it in that competition, you can use it anywhere else, is it anti-consumer to now allow you to compete? Nothing was destroyed, if you don't want to take off your trenchcoat then you can avoid it by simply not joining the competition (playing Riot games); the organizers of the powerlifting event define the rules of participation, they need to check for unfair advantages, detecting that requires a deep inspection and you can avoid it by not participating.
The analogy is not meant to be 100% perfect and I'm sure you can poke a hole in it, but you get the point right? I'm addressing you because you seem reasonable rather than being triggered, ideological or not understand what's even going on, you seem defend this because you think it's the right to do, but I don't see how it's anti-consumer in the first place.
Now look at my analogy, and perhaps you will see my point, as I see yours.
