I think online play would be far less popular if you allowed cheaters to run amok instead of banning them. Sure you\'re going to loose those customers who cheat.. but you\'re gaining a ton more who only didn\'t wanna go online because they feared their save files would get corrupted.. or didn\'t wanna put up with the hassle of dodging cheaters.
The question is.. how do you catch cheaters. Ok, so people aren\'t allowed to cheat online.. but are allowed to online. What\'s to stop someone from loading up on hacked or harmful items offline and then bringing them online? I think it\'s gotta be an across the board thing. If the game\'s online.. don\'t cheat. Period. Most companies have rules against reverse engineering their software.. and changing hex addresses or adding patches is doing exactly that. They\'re jus hard to catch offline.
Ok.. so now how do you actually catch them? Detect cheat devices upon logging into the server? That doesn\'t always work, and people create work-arounds. Patch the servers? That doesn\'t always work either as people make work arounds for the patches. Ban cheaters outright? Heh.. that hasn\'t worked either. People are (for some ungodly reason) are still willing to take the risk. Often times, they have work arounds to avoid or dodge bannings.
God knows I don\'t have the answer.. cause if I did I\'d be selling it to Capcom, Sega, Square, EA.. ect and making a fortune. I do know that, expecially with consoles, it\'s going to be a long struggle and there will be a LOT of trial and error along the way.
