Cheat detection is when the administrator or developers of a game server work to find players who are cheating. The developers will watch how matches are played and pick out those who are suspected of cheating and will look further into them. If the player’s activity is recognized as cheating the administrator of the server will either ban or suspend the activity of the player. This application is important because this will help AI in learning what cheats are and helping the game become more efficient and fair for all players.

In every multiplayer game, there are going to be those who you exploit to win matches. Cheaters in video games find a way to win matches with an unfair advantage by exploiting game mechanics and using foreign software. This has caused developers to find out who the cheaters are and punish them for their misconduct. At first, cheat detection was handled by server administrators, but as technology in video games advanced, AI is tasked to detect cheaters and administer bans or suspensions. The AI will take the data from the player on how they perform in the game and determine at some moments whether or not it was a human playing the game. After deciding that it is another AI performing, the anti-cheat will then remove the player from the server. With anti-cheats, it is easier to exploit third-party programs, but with exploits like going underneath the map, it won’t be able to always detect that as cheating so it is also up to the development team to either train the AI to see that as cheating, or provide updates to the game to stop exploits. Implementing supervised learning or reinforcement learning by having the AI pick which video input had a cheater in it could be an avenue of training AI. One of the more known anti-cheats is BattlEye, used by most first-person shooter games.

BattlEye is one of the anti-cheat software used in several games such as Destiny 2. It is installed as if it was part of the game you are playing. The anti-cheat acts as a shield around the games you play. One of the most known forms of cheating is hacking the game and BattlEye is made to defend against those efforts. BattlEye protects against hackers and runs completely independently without the help of a developer (BattlEye, 2013).

Data Mining

Another application of AI in both video games and business is data mining. Data mining is the process of turning raw data into useful information. Many businesses use this to get an understanding of what their customers want. Whether it be for recommended items or for how to push the business forward, data mining is essential for all businesses to get data on their consumers. This practice is also used by game developers to gain information on how the players behave and how they will play the game. This allows the developers to improve gameplay and make the game more enjoyable. This can also be used by the players who want to know about the plans of the game by leaking information.

AI in the Industry

Having a basic understanding of how AI works is beneficial when going into the game design industry. Going back on the types of learning it is best to understand those three to test how the game works and what outcomes will be produced in the industry, AI is also important for being a game programmer. The position that handles and maintains the AI is called an AI Game Programmer. Their job is to cater the AI to an individual player. Every game studio and publisher will always need programmers to do this job. In games like Division 2, you need to use AI to see how a player would typically act or play in a mission or scenario. In other games like The Last of Us, the AI of both allies and foes are designed in a way to believe they are human or infected zombies. AI plays a significant role in game development; without it, games would never play or look as good as they are now.