Uproar in the VRChat Community Over Latest Update's Implementation of Easy Anti-Cheat
There is a fiery controversy in the VRChat Community regarding the latest update for the social VR title. This update implements Easy Anti-Cheat on the PC version of the VR social game as a way to deter malicious hackers and crashers. However, it has also banned modded clients in general, causing an uproar in the community.
Many of these mods have features that improved quality of life, added accessibility features for those with disabilities, and allowed those with systems that would not have been able to play the game otherwise. A Twitter thread by ivycomb describes this in detail:
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This sentiment seems to be shared amongst several users of the platform. In response, many users are migrating to platforms such as Neos or ChilloutVR. The game’s Steam page has been bombarded with negative reviews, and those that are still in the game, however, have a wide range of opinions regarding the implementation of Easy Anti-Cheat.
“It’s harder for me to, like, play the game, if that makes sense…A lot of people have tried to log into the game, and it just will not let them through because of the new EAC thing even if they uninstalled any mods they may have had…it still just does not work.” VRChat user Unknown_Pastel said in an interview conducted for the article. “It hasn’t affected me too much I would say, but I am definitely upset about it because it took me a really long time…to try and, like, download the mods that I was trying to get, so it kinda feels like all that effort went to waste.” The mod in particular that they were trying to use was called EMMVRC, a mod that enabled custom avatar look-up and the ability to clip through walls. Avatar search seems to be a favorite feature among several who have used mods for the VR Social title, as one of the hallmarks of the game itself is being able to represent yourself using a variety of avatars from various franchises such as Marvel, Sonic, Star Wars, or anything else that has been created by the large userbase of the platform.
Some users even used mods to their advantage for certain community events. VRChat user Gunner utilized mods during Star Wars combat simulations on the platform, and he feels the recent update will ironically make it harder for him to catch cheaters during these battles.
“I’m in the Star Wars community, so I do a bunch of combat, and it kinda helped with getting to the players faster and telling them ‘Hey it’s over’…I could teleport to them if they were far away…I could watch them if I was flying through the map and through the walls…to see if they were cheating. Since they took that away, it’s harder to do that now…The game just kinda got a little boring.” Gunner stated.
“I feel as though it just ruined VRChat.” VRChat user DiamondBlueberry stated. “We can’t really do any of the mods that we’ve done before, and now it’s making its population go down.”
In addition to the removal of mods, some users have reported that the Easy Anti-Cheat program itself strains the user’s computer. VRChat user SI Subject is one such user who has noticed performance drops and strain on their machine following the update.
“Since Easy Anti-Cheat uses more resources on your computer, it’s been making my computer overheat whenever I play VRChat, so I would say it’s doing physical things in terms of overheating my computer.” SI Subject stated.
Some users of the platform, however, do not see EAC as that big of a deal. VRChat user Twistey falls into that camp. Though he does see why people are upset over this, he does not think that EAC spells doom for mods nor does he think it will even prevent hacking.
“People also need to know that it’s literally Easy Anti-Cheat, which is probably the easiest ‘Anti-Cheat’ process to bypass.” Twistey stated. “Easy Anti-Cheat is the same thing [Call of Duty] Warzone has…that game is literally famous for having cheaters in it, so I imagine within the first day or two that people are going to find ways to not only bypass it but completely dismiss it period.”
Easy Anti-Cheat was implemented into the social VR title as a way to crack down on hackers stealing information from players, ripping avatars, and crashing the game. However, many people agree with Twistey and think that it will do nothing to solve this problem.
“There’s so many bypasses for it, It doesn’t matter…it does nothing.” Gunner chimed in.
The development team for VRChat did not respond to any requests for comments regarding this situation. However, they have addressed the controversy multiple times either through their website, and despite the outcry, they are firm on keeping EAC within the platform, stating that they “do not have plans or intent to revert or roll it back.” The latest developer update, however, appears as if the team is listening to the outcry of its user base and is adding the features that were once available only through mods in its latest Live Beta. These features include horizon adjust, a movable menu, inverted look-to-move controls, a personal mirror, a calibration mirror, portal prompts, gesture indicator, home instance types, and particle limiters. Several users, however, think that these new features are little more than damage control.
“I think they still shouldn’t have added it [Easy Anti-Cheat], and I think them doing this is their attempt at damage control,” Unknown_Pastel stated. “I think they’re just trying to make up for what they did because they’re like ‘Oh! We’re losing a lot of good reviews right now! We should probably try and change little things,” but they’re not really changing anything at all.”
“It’s pretty much just damage control.” SI Subject stated. “I think they are just showing that they are doubling down on what they were intending before.”
Though the team appears to be listening to the concerns of the user base, it appears that most users do not think that they are actually listening and are just adding these features as a way to make users forget about this controversy. Only time will tell if EAC implementation is truly here to stay and whether or not benign and/or malicious hackers will find a way around the anti-cheat software.
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