EA games has recently shared the data backing up its anti-cheat measures, chiefly championing its kernel-level software, Javelin. The program, alongside additional OS-based security protocols, has banned over two million players to date, showing how effective anti-cheats can be when a developer takes them seriously.
In an X blogpost (yeah those exist), EA Games has shared a seasonal update on its anti-cheat, including how many players were detected and banned, as well as how many cheat developers and distributors were disrupted, to put it mildly. According to the company, 98 percent of all matches played in Battlefield 6 were "fair and free of cheater impacts," with over 2.39 million cheaters banned since release.
This implies almost every single player had a smooth and cheaterless experience with Battlefield 6, and only a small fraction of the community experienced unsportsmanlike conduct. I, for one, can provide anecdotal evidence to match this, as I haven't ever seen (or at least noticed) a cheater in BF6. This is across both official queues and community servers on Portal.
I also wrote about EA's "draconian" measures against cheaters and any form of bad behavior around launch, and it seems the company's brutal combat with unfair play actually has resulted in an overall cleaner game.
But that's not all: EA also wreaked havoc upon cheat vendors and sellers, claiming it has detected 190 "programs, hardware, vendors, and resellers and their communities," managing to ban 183 of them thus far. A lot of money is being lost to Javelin and its accompanying software, and it's only going to get worse for producers, developers, and sellers of cheats and cheating hardware, as EA is implementing further measures to detect and promptly ban them.
Of all companies, it appears that EA is taking this cheating thing the most seriously. Of course, others are banning millions of cheaters, too, but it does not seem like that's helping anything on a per-match basis. Take Counter-Strike 2, for example. The odds of meeting a cheater in either competitive or Premier matchmaking is astronomical, and I'd argue it could be around once every two matches, if not more.
Sure, VAC Live isn't a kernel-level anti-cheat like Javelin, nor does CS2 require Secure Boot, TPM 2.0, and other OS-based measures, but it seems the software isn't doing much regardless. Cheaters are running rampant, and so are bots, which is outright ruining the overall experience.
Call of Duty games, though with a remarkable track record of banning an ungodly number of cheaters, are another example. I've encountered so many aimboters, wallhackers, exploiters, and other unsportsmanlike players that it genuinely put me off the franchise for years.
The only other company that is even remotely close to EA in this regard is Riot Games. Vanguard AC, Riot's proprietary anti-cheat software, is ruthless. It has kept Valorant clean from day one, and only continues to improve as time goes by. It cancels matches, bans cheaters on the spot, and ensures you never lose MMR to unfair play.
Even so, it does not seem to be innovating on all levels like EA. In the case of EA, and DICE specifically (or Battlefield Studios now), there is a strong combination of proprietary tools, external software, and manual reviews that have borne a system where cheating is nigh impossible. Reports are processed quickly, manual reviews lead to fast bans and restrictions, while the automated systems try (and often succeed) to prevent cheaters from ever making it into the game.
EA's massive anti-cheat measures could lead to a total disruption of the cheating marketplace, inadvertently causing the recession of cheats in other games, too.
"If our work makes it harder and more time-consuming to develop and support a working cheat, the availability of that cheat will be lower, and the price likely will go up. Frustrated cheaters may quit cheating, quit playing, or go to some other game with more accessible cheats," EA wrote in an anti-cheating progress update back in April.
Even by then, it had banned 33 million cheaters with Javelin, causing serious damage to the finances of those who create and sell cheats (as well as to those who purchase them).
Disheartening and disrupting the whole cheating world could help other games stay cleaner as a result. While this is more wishful thinking than anything else, it's certainly doing something.
EA and DICE have done a remarkable job with Battlefield 6, which is by far one of the franchise's most successful releases. And, what's more, it has solved the issue that has plagued the series for over a decade: one where a small batch of players cause so much damage that the player base slowly erodes, as was the case in many of EA's older titles.
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