Blocking Linux / Steam Deck in Apex Legends led to a 'meaningful reduction' in cheaters
Back in October 2024, Respawn announced they were blocking Apex Legends on Linux platforms (including Steam Deck). Apparently this has worked quite well for them.
It's funny how EA is attributing their statistic to something can be strongly disproven. When looking at the given statistic they provided, they don't specify the raw count of cheaters banned, but simply the rate. Even giving the generous assumption that EA's statistics aren't significantly flawed, they show an alleged large drop in cheaters bottoming out in the week of Nov. 4, 2024, before starting to rise up again. Does something else coincide with the rate of cheaters dropping in the week of Nov. 4? There is in fact something that does. Season 23 was released the fifth with a large spike of players being brought into the game. Without a more comprehensive statistic graph over several months, it looks like EA is trying to just capitalize on the fact that a large influx of players joining the game will drop the rates of cheaters momentarily, and then passing it off as evidence that Linux cheating was rampant. Quite disingenuous.
Sounds like a scapegoat. Am I to believe that cheaters would install Linux, just use a cheat in a game?
If they can detect cheaters, couldn’t they also detect if the cheater is using Linux? Where’s the stats?
They tweeted this graph in early December:
[…] In this chart, we're displaying the infection rate, or the rate of matches that had a cheater present. […]
Note how the graph is missing labels and how neither it nor the tweet include information on how these metrics were gathered.
(Replying to myself) Even if these numbers are legit, we don’t know the process or exact metrics used.
This data may include falsely banned players on Linux (which was reported before they restricted Linux) and may exclude many cheaters on Windows (any of those who weren’t caught). We don’t know.
A couple of months ago, they blocked Linux. But the cheaters were already on the decline, so obviously these two facts are unrelated lmfao
since then, things also led to a meaningful reduction in players. I've been following a few larger/medium sized Apex streamers, and now all I can see them play is Marvel Legends.
I do miss playing it, though, despite being absolutely horrible at the game.
It was pretty fun when it first came out, i had a blast with a max tier sniper in like, my third round of it.
I'm willing to bet that the average Apex player is not a big enough nerd to even install Mint, the friendliest of distros, to cheat in the game. Linux accounts for what, ~2.5% of Steam users total? Come on.
