PUBG Disables 'Family Sharing' on Steam to Help Stop Cheaters

The crew behind the record breaking battle royale title, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), had made it very clear that they are looking to tackle the very prevalent cheating problem online. With over 1.5 millions cheaters to their name, it makes sense that they would want to squash that number as soon as possible. With their previous updates promising to up those efforts, one of the methods involved includes turning off the family sharing aspect on Steam.

For those that may not be familiar with what family sharing it, it allows accounts to link up in an effort to share a digital library of games. By implementing this as one of their anti-cheat measures, they are hoping to decrease the amount of software used for unfair play, as well as similar issues found out on the battlefield.

Dohyung Lee, Head of Service Management and Anti-Cheat took to the Steam forums to update players on what's in store. In-game report functions, file modification, and account sharing were all listed in his update.

We are gradually upgrading our in-game reporting features to effectively review your reports and accurately verify cheat activities. An internal system is being built as well to allow us to investigate reported content faster and more accurately. If you encounter a player you suspect of cheating, please use the report function. Please do bear in mind that when watching a replay, sometimes the replay footage and the actual gameplay may differ due to some bugs or network issues.

If you tamper with the game files, your game access may be blocked, especially if you delete, modify or manipulate in any way the files affecting any of the game systems and mechanics.

We have an announcement for those of you using family sharing on Steam. We had allowed this feature so that the account holders who own PUBG can use their character with other Steam accounts if they wanted to. However, we have decided to deactivate this feature because we have identified a number of vulnerabilities that are being exploited. Please understand that we are introducing this measure to fight abuse and ensure a fair environment.

He also went into detail about what exactly would be affected and what their intentions were:

As stated in our Rules of Conduct, "Play Fair and Respect Other Players" is a principle around which our game is built. To get the full Battle Royale experience, all 100 players must play fair. This is why we have been following the above principle of fair play and respect for others since the first pre-alpha test in July 2016.

As you drop out of the airplane and the intense journey to become the last survivor begins, the last thing a player wants to see is a cheater. We deeply sympathize with the inconvenience that our players are experiencing due to cheat programs and we are doing our best to fight those who create, distribute and use cheats. Our top goal is to create an environment that facilitates smooth and unhindered enjoyment of all the aspects of PUBG.

To this end, we have established a dedicated team to focus on combating cheat programs and since our launch on early access we have been committed to detecting and preventing such programs. As part of that effort, we have developed a new anti-cheat solution internally. We will be introducing an early version of the solution on our live servers next week (this is the solution that is currently being tested on our test servers). This solution will complement the systems that have been developed and implemented already. Its main focus for now is blocking unauthorized programs but it will be further developed to broaden the scope of its abilities.

This feature will also block different helper programs that alter the graphics or aid in gameplay in some way. What these programs have in common is that they all hook into our game and transform game files. Programs that are not used to gain an unfair advantage can also be blocked if they behave like cheats.

Some programs that do not affect gameplay may be blocked temporarily as we hone the new anti-cheat features. We are checking the programs that are being blocked on the test servers and will allow the use of harmless programs as quickly as possible."

The changes will be gradual as the team continues to brainstorm their course of action. For now, hopefully many players will begin to see a noticeable difference with fair play.