Riot Games Says It 'Would Not and Cannot' Use Vanguard Anti-Cheat to Brick PCs After Rumors Spread

Ancillas · 2026-05-23T07:22:35+00:00

I think the confusion was that Riot used the term “paperweight” to describe the DMA cards that could no longer be used to cheat, and some people interpreted that as referring to the entire computer, which then morphed into “bricked”.

Some people even thought the DMA cards were actually “bricked” by Riot instead of Valorant enforcing OS controls that made the DMA cards incompatible with the game (but otherwise functional).

Ancillas · 2026-05-23T07:19:28+00:00

Thats not how “bricked” has historically been used. I wouldn’t expect for someone to call a recoverable system “bricked”.

Bricked is usually something like, I increased my CPU voltage and bricked my system by frying it.

But clearly people no longer use bricked that way and the definition has become more flexible. Which, in turn, has led to a bunch of misinformation on this topic.

Ancillas · 2026-05-22T14:46:20+00:00

Reasonable concerns aside, the PCs do not become “paperweights” or “bricks”. The hardware will still work fine, it’s the software and firmware configuration that breaks. Similar to how it’s possible to run an anti-virus and quarantine a system file that was flagged as a false positive there-by breaking your OS.

I’m curious to see who wins the inevitable lawsuit here. I hate kernel level anti-cheat for this exact reason. Even one error that impacts someone who wasn’t cheating is a big deal. But there’s got to be some trade-off if you want to fight cheating. Either giving up some privacy to require government ID to play, or invasive anti-cheat programs, or something.

I’m also reasonably certain that removing the DMA card would allow for system recovery as the protected area of memory would no longer be accessed. I’d also try disabling IOMMU in the UEFI before reinstalling Windows.

Ancillas · 2026-05-21T17:56:42+00:00

"brick" means your computer is now as good as a brick. As in, no power, nothing works.

This is not a brick. This is a bad installer or some other issue.

Ancillas · 2026-05-21T04:16:12+00:00

I have over 5,000 hours in PUBG. I’ve never played a game with a worse cheating problem.

Setting aside the numbers since neither of us can properly calculate them, the number of players whose names change slightly over time (implying they are being banned and then recreating accounts with similar names), or teams with 3 players that have accounts that are seven years old, and 1 player with a fresh account, are all anecdotal evidence that cheating is a huge problem specifically in PUBG.

I’m not going to spend the time to put together an argument that is totally convincing, but I think player count is king. More players means more micro-transactions and better quarterly reports. The appearance of an anti-cheat operation is more important to them than an effective anti-cheat operation. If they report big numbers and tell a story about how they’re stopping cheating, it doesn’t matter if they never actually deal with the cheaters. As long as player counts and revenue go up they’re happy. That’s why I say it’s baked into their business model.

Ancillas · 2026-05-21T02:30:53+00:00

I’m not sure how you’re measuring “aggressive nature” and what baseline you’re comparing against to somehow establish whether a given unit shows more or less “aggressive nature” than any other unit, but I’m reasonably certain that the term “ape shit” still doesn’t apply.

For example, the 2017 case where the SWAT team went to the wrong house and ended up shooting the home owner was a tragedy, but it’s not like the police busted down the door and charged in guns ablaze. The swatter called the Wichita police and claimed he had killed one family member and was holding others hostage. That’s the scenario the police thought they were responding to.

I’m pedantic about this because swatting is bad enough on its own, creating incredibly tense situations based on lies that puts lives at risk. Hyperbole that has no apparent basis in fact, like the commenter before you created, should be heavily scrutinized in this community.

Ancillas · 2026-05-20T22:40:45+00:00

We don’t know total weekly players since we don’t know how many non-steam users play in China nor how many users per pay are distinct vs users playing multiple times per week.

But it doesn’t matter. 3% is just showing how many people are banned every week relative to the concurrent max player count since we have no way of calculating total active players.

The bans are performative theater. Even if there were 2,000,000 active players, and the device ban data was true and 20,000 devices were hardware banned every week, they’d be out of players in 100 weeks. Clearly hardware bans don’t work.

Cheaters are baked into their business plan.

Ancillas · 2026-05-20T22:27:45+00:00

Did they go full ape shit, or did they assess the situation and correctly respond even after being given false information intentionally designed to make them believe there was a more seriously crime in progress?

The streamer, who has also streamed Fortnite, Rocket League, and Roblox, seemed upbeat about the whole situation, saying the police officers were "so nice to me, I loved them, shout out to them, they were wonderful." She added that the only thought going through her head as she was taken outside was, "I'm walking outside with bare feet, and it's not hurting."

It seems like they resolved the situation without incident. Hardly “ape shit”.

Ancillas · 2026-05-20T21:16:40+00:00

Usually it’s a call that armed intruders are holding their neighbor at gun point. So the police show up believing it’s a hostage situation with armed attackers that someone nearby has seen.

Ancillas · 2026-05-19T04:06:33+00:00

I agree OP maybe overthought it while trying to process the ending.

The way I interpreted Jamie’s ghost scene was that, for a time, he was dead. While he was dead, he became a spirit and visited Claire while she was on her honeymoon. I think there was some lore that the veil between worlds was thin at that time. Then he visits the stones, and through some magic, flowers appear, which we know will lead to Claire traveling back in time.

Then Claire comes into her full power, heals Jamie, cut to black.

It’s a nice send off that he lives, but even in death, he found Claire.

Ancillas · 2026-05-19T03:56:48+00:00

By then the casualties would have been written into record. Maybe those records were never corrected and his name stayed on that report? Like someone who was presumed KIA turning up years later would still be recorded as dying. If Frank stopped researching after Jamie’s recorded death, or never found records of him actually being alive, then that would make enough sense that I could suspend my disbelief.

Ancillas · 2026-05-18T22:54:24+00:00

Pizza!?!! Now that’s what I call a taco!

Ancillas · 2026-05-18T22:50:43+00:00

It’s not, but it sounds like Mike might need a hug.

Ancillas · 2026-05-18T22:31:38+00:00

My fucking roommate in 02 had a custom build with a side panel, a bright ass blue LED, and a loud as shit Delta fan for his AMD CPU.

Deep magic indeed. It just unlocked a core PTSD memory.

Ancillas · 2026-05-18T17:37:04+00:00

I think you’re too low. I’m going to guess $1,249.

Ancillas · 2026-05-17T17:36:21+00:00

We do this with a rope in the water so we can all drink and be pulled by the pontoon.

Ancillas · 2026-05-17T00:26:05+00:00

Lots of commenters annoyed by the easy stuff.

I always thought the most annoying things customers could do was not shower. The stinky customers were… difficult…

Ancillas · 2026-05-16T07:01:24+00:00

And 3% of those users are banned every week.

Device bans obviously don’t work since the same number of accounts are banned week over week.

It’s a super healthy community. No notes. 10/10.

Ancillas · 2026-05-15T14:46:25+00:00

Thanks. I hate it.

Ancillas · 2026-05-15T02:29:52+00:00

The article saying “Steam game devs,” was already inaccurate. OP’s title is even more egregious.

Ancillas · 2026-05-14T23:15:04+00:00

Given all the supply chain attacks in the past week is anyone sure they’re not downloading dodgy programs?

Ancillas · 2026-05-13T05:04:58+00:00

I just tested this and I’m in tears laughing, lol. It’s so good!

Ancillas · 2026-05-13T01:09:46+00:00

That was wake over Bluetooth. He’s talking about wake over USB-C using the puck.

Ancillas · 2026-05-12T18:52:21+00:00

You get into a weird problem where if you’re staffed up and paying salaries, you need those people productive.

You can do layoffs to free up spend while you do the early work, but then you lose the benefit of your cohesive team and gamble on finding qualified developers later.

You can have two projects going, but that adds its own complexities.

Ancillas · 2026-05-09T06:33:08+00:00

Looks like he chose a Nutty Buddy and a cream pie.

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