This Is Not a Bug but a Game Feature-Chapter 319 - 205: FPS Game That Eliminates Cheats (Part 2)
Although Chen Ba couldn’t meet Dong’s demands, he did come up with a solution.
The solution is to shift the blame.
Blame the players. If anyone asks, just say you don’t know; it’s content uploaded and shared by the players themselves and has nothing to do with Tianba Studio.
In fact, most of the mainstream social media short video platforms operate this way.
Ahem... most!
The reason it’s "most" is mainly because there are a few "wealthy and powerful" platforms that have partnered with digital music copyright holders, like Penguin Music X TikTok.
You definitely can’t learn from this model, so you can only rely on players to create their own content.
...
By the end of January, during the lunar New Year.
The annual TGA Awards ceremony, known as the "Oscar" of the gaming industry, was held grandly in Los Angeles, United States.
This is the gaming industry’s version of settling scores; all the invited game developers who were keen to compete for the top awards registered for this ceremony without exception.
Chen Ba did too.
This wasn’t his first invitation — he was actually invited in the previous two years as well. But Tianba Studio lacked competitiveness in the core categories in those years, so he was too lazy to go.
This year is special because this time, Tianba Studio, which usually comes up empty-handed, got nominated under various categories for "Global Evolution," like Best Game of the Year, Best Performance, Best Community Support, Best RPG Game, Best Multiplayer Game, and many more.
Woohoo, takeoff!
Chen Ba had never received such treatment before, and the thought of his hands getting sore from all the awards made him excitedly head to the ceremony.
Unfortunately, there were things he only realized after arriving on site — although "Global Evolution" was nominated in many categories, it mostly played second fiddle.
Winning one or two awards would already be quite the achievement.
As for the Game of the Year?
Sorry! Although the committee claimed all the awards remain secret until the winner is announced, nobody knew the winner’s name until then.
OK! OK!
Chen Ba was already sick of the fairness talk; no matter how well the committee pretended, everyone on-site knew who the winners were.
Of course, ordinary people wouldn’t know, thinking the award process was quite thrilling.
But for someone like Chen Ba, the studio boss, or Huang Qing, the CEO, it was darn near impossible to hide it from them.
After all, there were only a few nominees; everyone knew each other’s skills, who had the most game fans, and who put in the most effort for the award — none of this was secret.
"What a shame..."
Yang Dong, stationed far away in Jiangning, learned that "Global Evolution" missed the Game of the Year and said with half-regret, half-relief: "We can accept this! After all, if we really won, we’d probably be viewed as the shock factor by netizens."
This year, the award for TGA Game of the Year went to Valve; their new game was a global hit, with influence in the Western world far surpassing "Global Evolution."
This was likely why "Global Evolution" didn’t win in the end — it was known but not well-known, with limited international influence...
If "Global Evolution" had actually won Game of the Year, Chen Ba would be happy, but many Valve fans and even players abroad wouldn’t be pleased, questioning the integrity of this TGA, awarding a game they’ve never heard of.
Of course!
As the saying goes, you win some, you lose some! After failing to win Game of the Year, "Global Evolution" quickly snagged a few consolation prizes.
Things like Best Community Support, Best RPG Game, etc.
Chen Ba, as the game’s lead producer, also went on stage for a speech, but alas, everyone had a time limit; otherwise, he would’ve dropped a rap right there.
But...
There was a time limit for acceptance speeches, so it wasn’t great for showcasing talent, but in the industry exchange session after the event — there, you could let loose.
This session was private.
It wasn’t open to the public, with no journalists or media, just representatives from console manufacturers and game companies at a celebration party.
Here, Chen Ba met the head of a game studio in the United States specializing in FPS games. He seemed quite interested in Chen Ba, chatting about all sorts of things.
During their conversation, Chen Ba learned that the Big Beard game producer was trying to inquire about the possibility of using the Tianba Engine for FPS games.
"Huh?"
Chen Ba was initially dumbfounded by this somewhat absurd question.
Tianba Engine? FPS?
These two are clearly not the same category of things! The Tianba Engine was not originally tuned for FPS games.
So, obviously, using the Tianba Engine to develop FPS games was quite risky and adventurous; if successful, everyone would rejoice, but if it failed, it might be worse than a flop.
"The engine can support FPS games, but I don’t recommend doing so because the Tianba Engine doesn’t have much FPS game development experience."
Here, Chen Ba suddenly became curious: "By the way, there are many excellent engines for FPS games, right? Why did you pick the Tianba Engine?"
He was genuinely curious.
FPS games, being one of the hottest categories in the gaming industry, have countless big hits. Listing a dozen or so popular FPS games on the market would be easy.
If that’s the case, when developing a quality FPS game, why not use the engines from those games?
Tianba Engine? Not worth anything!
In China, the Tianba Engine might have some swagger, but abroad, the emerging Tianba Engine was crap, with few developers willing to try it.
"Chen, you seem to have forgotten..."
The developer named Kadir shrugged and said: "What you mentioned isn’t fatal for an FPS game, especially an online game."
"The real killer is cheating!"
Cheating?
Hearing this term, Chen Ba was a bit puzzled and nodded.
It really is...
When evaluating the quality of an FPS game, especially online games, players often consider how harshly cheats are punished and banned, and how prevalent they are.
Games that maintain a competitive environment and severely punish cheats are considered the best FPS games by players.
So here’s the problem...
Is there any FPS game that can completely block all cheats and scripts, ensuring a green and healthy gaming environment?
The answer is no!
FPS cheats rampant for a reason, and at the current pace of game development, it’s unlikely to be resolved in the next ten years.
Ten years is conservative...
Some more radical players might even say problems with FPS cheats can’t be solved in 30 years.
The mainstream solution validated by the market — like what "Valorant" does — sweep the disk and monitor players to prevent cheating.
Frankly, this method is quite crude.
Due to its crudeness and the lack of privacy in such intrusive surveillance, it can cause players’ aversion and rejection.
"So... what are you trying to say?"
Chen Ba was very puzzled — Kadir’s mention of FPS games was shocking enough, and then he brought up cheats; what exactly was his point?
What does the Tianba Engine have to do with FPS games? And how is it related to cheats?
Kadir couldn’t be suggesting developing various FPS cheat software using the Tianba Engine, could he?
"NO!"
Kadir denied this nonsense with no hesitation and explained: "My discovery is related to cheats, but believe me, I am a law-abiding, green player."
"My discovery was, when I attempted to make a small FPS game with the Tianba Engine, the game actually resisted the intrusion of various FPS cheat software."
Chen Ba: "???"
Resisted various cheat software? Isn’t that expected?
However flawed the Tianba Engine might be, the underlying system comes from the Iron Fool System, so however advanced those cheat software may be, they can’t bypass the system.
So what’s so surprising... wait a minute! Did he say FPS games just now?
Chen Ba quietly widened his eyes.
