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Combating Toxicity and Cheats in Gaming with Intorqa’s Andrew Hogan
65 Plays2 months ago
Summary: In this episode, we sit down with Andrew Hogan to explore the growing problem of cheating in online gaming. Andrew shares his journey from brand strategy at Barclays to co-founding Intorqa, a company dedicated to combating cheating through with threat intelligence. We dive into the business of cheating, its impact on game developers, and how Intorqa's SaaS platform helps publishers stay one step ahead of cheaters. This episode is a must-listen for game developers, community managers, and anyone interested in maintaining a fair gaming environment.
Key Topics Covered:
- Introduction to Andrew Hogan and Intorqa: Andrew’s background in brand strategy and his unexpected path from Barclays to gaming.
How Intorqa started during the early days of COVID-19 and has evolved since then. - The Business of Cheating: Cheating has grown into a commercial enterprise with subscription models similar to SaaS.
Cheating is not just about hobbyists anymore; it’s a lucrative business with developers selling cheats to players. - Cheating and Its Impact on Gaming Communities: Cheaters drive players away, affect in-game spending, and damage the game’s reputation.
Toxicity linked with cheating often creates a negative loop, pushing more players towards cheats and spreading distrust within communities. - The company provides actionable insights to game publishers, helping them stay ahead of cheating trends.
- The Real Cost of Cheating: Cheating costs developers by driving players away and decreasing in-game purchases.
Andrew discusses the financial impact on developers and how anti-cheat efforts help protect game economies. - The Challenges of Implementing Anti-Cheat Measures: Cheaters constantly adapt, making anti-cheat a never-ending game of cat and mouse.
Insights on why developers must prioritize anti-cheat strategies early in game development. - Andrew’s Insights on Gaming Security: How Intorqa’s platform helps developers understand and preempt cheating tactics.
Discussion on some of the most sophisticated cheats, including Direct Memory Access (DMA) cheats. - Future of Gaming and Anti-Cheat Technology: The importance of staying vigilant as gaming continues to grow.
Intorqa’s vision for a safer and fairer gaming environment.
Timestamps:
- 00:32 - 02:24: Andrew introduces himself and the origins of Intorqa.
- 04:02 - 05:42: Discussion on how cheating has become a commercial business.
- 10:25 - 12:47: The impact of cheating on player experience and community toxicity.
- 13:28 - 15:30: How Intorqa’s SaaS platform gathers intelligence from cheat forums.
- 32:17 - 34:13: When and how game developers should start thinking about anti-cheat measures.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Cheating in Gaming
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, Greg from the Player Engaged podcast and here's what you're about to listen to. We are going to be focusing on cheating today. What is cheating? Did you know that cheating is actually a business? I learned that on this podcast today. It has a huge impact on gaming and communities. What is the Intorka approach to anti-cheat and what is the real cost of cheating?
Andrew Hogan's Background and Transition
00:00:21
Speaker
We're going to be visited by Andrew Hogan from Intorka and he's the co-founder of CRO and it's a really cool podcast where we learn a lot. So I really hope you enjoy this episode. Let us know what you think. Enjoy.
00:00:40
Speaker
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Player Engage podcast. Greg here. Today we are joined by Andrew Hogan, the CRO and co-founder of Intorka. Andrew has been around being a brand strategist at Barclays. He has a lot of brand strategy in his background and he has a lot of brand director and kind of creative background. So I'm excited to be able to pick on him to understand the creative background and how he goes from banking to gaming and anti-cheat. And I'm excited to learn about that. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us today.
00:01:10
Speaker
Do you want to introduce yourself? yeah Thanks for having me. I'm Andrew. I'm the currently the chief revenue officer and one of the co-founders of Intorka. and Yeah, it's's it's got ah an interesting journey um from my background was in advertising um and on the agency side and then on the client side in marketing teams, including, as you mentioned, Barclays, which is probably my was my most recent job before starting into Orca. And one of the things that
00:01:42
Speaker
it came out of actually it was one of the things we were doing at Barclays was looking at gaming um from a brand perspective but also a commercial perspective actually um because we were on the payment side and obviously there's a micro payments going on in gaming getting bigger and bigger and bigger we were getting interested so I started a project to look at how we could get involved in gaming.
From Barclays to Gaming
00:02:04
Speaker
It's so happened that, I mean, we it's actually, since I've left Barclays, they've, um they have continued actually, and they are from on on the UK side of things, very much involved in gaming. But I left Barclays towards the end of 2019. And I've been having conversations with a, actually an old friend of mine, but also um someone who was and involved in media monitoring. And he and I,
00:02:29
Speaker
um uh, started sort of chatting about what he was up to. And, um, so when I left Barclays, we carried on talking. And one of the things that I noticed with gaming when, um, I was at Barclays was that there are some issues around cheating, for example, um, and also toxicity ah and fraud.
Addressing Cheating with Social Listening
00:02:49
Speaker
And obviously with sort of our financial heads on, we were going to have, you know, we dug a little deeper into this. So I'd seen that, um, whilst gaming was absolutely huge.
00:02:59
Speaker
yeah there was this problem around cheating. And Martin and I, Martin, this the the CEO, were talking. And we sort of jumped on the idea that, you know, by using social listening techniques, threat intelligence techniques, we could help publishers um deal and deal with the threat of cheating and get ahead of the bad actors.
00:03:21
Speaker
And so I came on board and talker, um, and there's along with that, that sort of with Martin, the CEO, and also Michael Williams, the COO. Um, and yeah, and you know, that was four years ago, we launched in talker, um, right, uh, in the middle of, right at the sort of start actually of COVID March, 2020.
Intorka's Anti-Cheat Services
00:03:43
Speaker
Um, and here we are today, so's just to still surviving.
00:03:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. And that's fascinating. I didn't really put it together at first until you started talking about Barclays. It's a bank. People are paying with their cards. ah So there's a gamification, not maybe not gamification, but there's a game side to it that's dealing with that stuff. And for our listeners, we originally met Andrew through Our Community Clubhouse. It's ah not Our Community Clubhouse, it's through Community Clubhouse where they are a sponsor of it. And When he started telling me about what they do, it was mind boggling because you don't understand how people are looking at different ways people do cheat. People cheat in all different types of games, whether it's free to play, mobile, console, and there's different approaches that people take to it. And when you go to the Intorka website, it goes through some of these as well on how people cheat these free to play games. And it's fascinating to hear. And I guess from a high level, can you give us a little elevator pitch on what exactly Intorka is doing?
The Business of Cheating
00:04:35
Speaker
Yeah, sure. I mean,
00:04:36
Speaker
You know, cheating in in in gaming is nothing new. And in particular, when online gaming came on the scene, that's when cheating as a let's be as a business started, really. And I think that's an important thing to remember is that cheating is now a business. It's not just hobbyists trying to make themselves, you know, trying to break the system and actually kind of almost create something almost constructive in a way. This is about businesses selling cheats to players who want to cheat or want to scam.
00:05:05
Speaker
um other players and indeed the publishers. um What we noticed is that um It's a game, I mean, there's so many different, there's quite a few cliches, it's an arms race, it's a game of whack-a-mole, whatever you want to call it. But it's that constant sort of chasing, you've got the publishers on the one hand, it's an arms race. They're constantly, the cheetah developing new cheetahs, the publishers are catching up, trying to identify them and catching up, and it just goes on
Challenges for Game Publishers
00:05:33
Speaker
and goes on. And obviously, entity software is incredibly important for protecting the game, anti-tamper, whether it's anti-tamper or heuristics or whatever, it's all very important.
00:05:43
Speaker
but The um one area where we noticed that publishers were kind of trying to win with their hands tied behind their back, I guess, was in the business of intelligence, staying ahead or keeping up to date with what is going on um in the cheating communities. And cheat development and sets in the selling of cheats, they're like any community, they they congregate online. And so we realized and we thought that, well, by monitoring these communities,
00:06:15
Speaker
um We would be able to gather insights and data at a much quicker rate than you can do manually, which is what a lot of the publishers are doing. We would do it through us through a SaaS platform we've developed, which will do it on a much bigger scale, much quicker. Effectively, we can monitor um all the cheap developer channels, forums, et cetera, et cetera, where they will talk about cheats, where they sell cheats, et cetera. And we can give that insights and data to publishers through our SaaS platform on an ongoing basis. And with that data, they can opt continually optimize their anti-cheat software. um And you know by buying cheats, testing them, seeing how they work, and patching the game um just as as one example.
Impact of Cheating on Players
00:07:01
Speaker
But by um but doing this, we can yeah get lit. The way we sometimes talk about it is, if it's a game of whack-a-mole, at least they now know where the mole is coming out of next.
00:07:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's ah an awesome point. I remember years ago, I was dealing with spam and spam filters. And it was the same type of thing is, you know, you block a spammer, they find another way to send you spam and cheaters are just the same way you put it one of the anti cheats in place. All right, then they're gonna find the next anti cheat. It's not like Cheating is going to give up just because you found a way to block them it and you put it great and I never really thought about it But it is its own business people are profiting over this and making money off this and curious from your side Do you know any of the numbers of how much cheating is costing some of these developers? but It's hard. It's really hard to put a number on how much it costs the you know, the developers and the publishers Obviously a lot of this data is very confidential, but you know the ways in which it costs Talking kind of at an abstract level include, you know, I mean there's
00:07:58
Speaker
There's lots of research on this, but you can see that you know ah lot it is something like 70% of gamers say they've encountered cheating in the last six months or approximately. And then you get the research that that sort of research often asks the question, of what do you do when you encounter cheating? And a lot of them just say they'll leave the game. They'll go into another game.
00:08:19
Speaker
So obviously there's there's the danger and it's the cost of losing players, but even the ones that don't actually leave the game will often claim that they're less likely to spend money in game on items because after a while bother spending money if someone's just going to you know get you with an aimbot straight away. So it know it obviously has an impact like that. I mean, but in terms of numbers, the other way of looking at it is what the cheats themselves, um but what they what they charge.
00:08:45
Speaker
And most, a lot of them are based on, you know, they charge out on a kind of subscription model, a monthly subscription model. And that can range from, you know, $30 a month to sort of thousands of dollars a month for something that's really exclusive and you know isn't really being sold on the kind of open market of, you know, cheats.
00:09:05
Speaker
Wow, I had no idea yeah there were SaaS cheating platforms out there basically allowing you to join these things. Wow, that's fascinating. It must be really in-depth communities. And I like the social listening aspect of it, right? Because then you have all the tools needed to crawl the networks, crawl the social, right? I mean, people are obviously communicating about this online, so how do you figure out where they live?
00:09:27
Speaker
ah without that, and and that just kind of blows my mind that these communities exist. And I guess there's just more being naive and not understanding that they have been there, but the level of depth, like I i would question why someone's spending $1,000 a month to cheat, but then I could understand you can sell your account, right? You build a clash of clans, town, obviously level up to level, whatever town hall they're on, then you sell that account and you you profit from there. Exactly. And you've got, you know, and there's different reasons. That's, I mean, that's 100%, you know, if you like, account,
00:09:57
Speaker
which is kind of loosely called account fraud, goes kind of almost hand in hand with cheating on so many levels. I mean, one on one level, it enables cheats who get to who do get detected and banned, you know, within a couple of minutes, there was another accountant can be playing again, you know, that in a matter of hours. um So you know which raises the yeah the questions around banning players, how effective that can be. But then obviously, Greg, as you as you said there, there's the aspect of You know, some people cheat purely to boost accounts, which they can then sell. And that is a kind of a circle which goes round and round and round. And that's 100% one of the problems. And then you do get, but then there are people who cheat. And there are, I said, streamers and some esports players will be buying or using very exclusive cheats. Probably the kind that are only available in private, in private forums, if indeed even there.
00:10:49
Speaker
Um, and there'll be, you know, they like like in most professional sports, there are some people who are out to abuse the system and win at any cost. Yeah. And it really has an impact on the community, as you were mentioning earlier, right? Because I, as a player, if I'm going to go play the latest Call of Duty, right? And I get on there and I'm keeping my butt handed to me by someone that's cheating, right? I'm not going to go back and and play the game. it And that hurts twofold, right? Because the retention rate is huge for gaming companies. And to your point, I would spend money in Call of Duty, right? I don't mind paying for skins if I'm playing a game that I really love. But if I'm going to keep getting my but butt handed to me, there's no reason I'm going to go back into that game.
00:11:27
Speaker
Yeah, completely. And and I think that the that, yeah, there's that aspect, obviously, you know, really it it it you know particular actually in what we've seen, particularly players who are new to a game, ah you know, that that's kind of almost the saddest thing is you'll see, you know, yeah people they haven't been who aren't sort of, haven't played CSGO for years and are used to it. they'll They'll start playing it, but then within a matter of hours, they'll be coming across cheats and just, that's it, your hands up, I'm off. Or actually, sadder still, they just think they're not very good.
00:11:57
Speaker
and give up.
Toxicity and Cheating in Gaming
00:11:58
Speaker
You know, they might even realize it's actually a cheat that they're playing. They just think, oh, this game's too hard for me, which is which is missing as a whole other problem. But then another issue is is this ah is that is that is the toxicity that comes with cheating as well. And I mean, cheat communities themselves are all, as you you won't be surprised to hear, pretty toxic places. It's almost like a badge of honor. But unfortunately, that also comes into the into into the into the main know player communities as well. Because you can if you think about it,
00:12:26
Speaker
you if you you start playing a game, you know you're doing quite well. You start leveling, you start know spent putting in the hours, spending of spending a bit on in-game items, leveling up your character, getting to a decent level. And then you know one day you come across somebody who's cheating, and then it's annihilating you with an aim, but every time you respawn, you know you you get you get you get you get pissed off with this. And unfortunately, so some people just take it on the chin and go, right, that's not for me, i' I'm off.
00:12:52
Speaker
um But, you know, that other people will, you know, they'll, they'll so retaliate with some toxic behavior, kind of understandably in some, in some respects. And then obviously what that kind of is, it's becomes a vicious circle that, you know, cheating begets toxicity. And obviously the issue is toxicity kind of begets cheating as well, because in a toxic community, you're going to, your kind of moral compass, if you like, is going to be less bothered about using a cheat than in a in community, community with, you know, respect and integrity running through it.
00:13:23
Speaker
Playing amongst toxic cheats, you' know you're not really going to care. And then you've also got the aspect of, the so couldn you and yeah the but when when someone does start cheating, if you do encounter cheating for the first time, you start to not trust everyone you're playing with. So you're throwing accusations around, and then you start throwing accusations around on a purpose. I mean, you can kind of see how it quickly degenerates into a pretty nasty scene.
00:13:48
Speaker
Yeah, you have a very negative sentiment built around your game, which is going to affect everything. And you want to make sure you don't have that negative sentiment because happy players will keep coming back to your game. And and when when we spoke a couple of weeks ago, you kind of.
00:14:01
Speaker
You threw this out that when your game gets popular, your your community starts to grow. When your community starts to grow, toxicity can start to come into that, right? Cheating is going to be more apparent on popular games than less popular games, because people are there. So it's like this chicken or egg in a way. like You want to grow that community, but you also want to create that safe place for your community where there aren't cheaters, where there's only good eggs or right or neutral eggs. I guess we don't need all good people. But like you don't necessarily need all the It's like, how do you prevent that toxicity from coming in? And within Torca, I assume you guys are mostly doing the proactive, let's make sure that these cheaters are out there. Are you working with communities at all as well? Or do you partner with anyone that works with these communities as well and make sure that the
00:14:44
Speaker
No, no, ah generally speaking, our clients we work with are in the security teams where it does actually bear ease and is occasionally with smaller games where they don't really have an established security team. It it seems to sometimes land on looking and the community manager's
Intorka's Collaboration with Security Teams
00:15:00
Speaker
a response, one of their many responsibilities. So we'll work with them on that. Um, but it's, it's interesting, you know, the the sort of, you call it chicken and egg. You know, it goes back to the point that cheap development is a business.
00:15:14
Speaker
And so, you know, a cheat developer is going to make cheats for a game that's popular. They are going to make some money. So they go for the most popular games. And actually what they often do is they'll, I mean, and they will start early, you know, they they will start hitting games as soon as they look like they're becoming popular.
00:15:32
Speaker
even in alpha and beta tests. If something's getting a lot of hype, a lot of anticipation, or even more, so if it's the sequel to something, um you know they will be they will they will be there. And you know you've we've seen cheat developers come out with cheats two days after announcing the fact they're working on them.
00:15:50
Speaker
yeah We've seen another game, very famous sequel, or recent sequel, where it was crazy numbers. It was like 75 cheats were available after about eight days. I mean, ludicrous. Now, some of those won't work. That's one of and one of the things we spend a lot of time doing is sifting through kind of the the the scams effectively. I mean, it's not a surprise, is it? And cheesy that a lot of those things that people are buying are just scams, often malware, whatever, and or just don't work.
00:16:17
Speaker
um So a lot of what we do is sifting through them, but still the numbers are crazy and it's the speed at which they'll they'll target a game which looks like it's becoming popular, which is kind of why um thinking about, particularly in certain sorts of games. it is a you know i mean turn-based strategy games it's not going to be such an issue puzzle games not such an issue but if you're launching a you know battle royale multiplayer shooter it's you know it needs to be kind of almost item one on the agenda because you will be attracting cheats they will be targeting your game and you know you need to be taking steps well before you're going into testing
00:16:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great point, especially with these live service games, it dies by the numbers, right? It lives or dies by that. So, yeah so right, like you said, if you're if you're not If you're not ready for that right out the gate, you have probably this little window where you make things right or wrong. There's some games recently I played that once they came out, I had a bad experience that first time. Don't even look back. Why? Because there's 10 other games that do the same thing, right? And it's important for their reputation. It's important for that to make sure it's a fair environment, a level environment, someplace where anyone, whether I've ever played a first person shooter or a battle royal can thrive or or not.
00:17:31
Speaker
100% and it's it's it's there's nothing sadder than seeing you know and we've seen a few of them recently some you know um I say recently in the last 12 18 months of new indie games you know shooters taking the kind of taking the world by storm doing fantastically well but then all of a sudden before you know it you look at the player reddit all they're talking about is how many cheaters there are and I'm gonna move back to whatever game it was you know and it's just and and you know that's and you know it's kind of it's it's not surprising if you're an indie that game security isn't on your kind of number one on your list of priorities from a you know for in terms of investment and stuff but um unfortunately it's becoming more and more important if it's if you're watching one of those sorts of games it just has to be high up on your agenda otherwise you can just get overrun literally overrun with cheaters
00:18:24
Speaker
Usually about halfway through the ah podcast. I like to do a fireball round. I'll throw some questions at you. Good to go. Yeah, that's fine. All right. What did you have for breakfast? A bagel with Marmite. Marmite? That's very Australian, right? That might throw many of the any of your US listeners what Marmite is. I'm not quite sure how to explain it. Technically, it's yeast extract.
00:18:49
Speaker
All right. Well, we'll look that up. Uh, what game are you playing? Um, I am playing and it's, it's embarrassing to say it, but I'm still the one I go back to, shall we say is Mario Kart again. I played that last night. Yeah. there you go You can't, you just can't, you can't beat the classics. No, of course not. And you can take it in and out of it. And when you're, you know, when you're busy,
00:19:17
Speaker
this if If you're a drinker, there's some great drinking games with Mario Kart as well. You can really have an adult time. Yeah. ah Dream vacation. Australia. Australia. um What is the last book you read?
00:19:34
Speaker
I'm, well, what I'm reading at the moment, actually, which, so that's my dog, is relevant to gaming, Blood, Sweat and Pixels, which I know isn't new, but it's, it's, it's, I came across it, yeah I just saw someone talking about it the other day and I read it, and it's just great, because it's taking, it's obviously many of the stories from quite a few, not that long ago, but quite a few years ago, before the kind of the latest boom in gaming.
00:19:55
Speaker
ae So yeah, that's really good. It's interesting to hear from, because obviously we're not developers. So we only, we get to see path, you know, some of the kind of gaming is an industry, but not from the inside. And I think what's fascinating about that that book, particularly in all the stories in it is it's, you know, it's obviously the inside story and some really big games like destiny and, um, uh, halo and, you know, it's it's, it's, yeah, it's cool. Awesome. Cool. Well, you're off the hot seat. ah Easy, right? Um,
00:20:23
Speaker
I'm really curious about your timing of Intorka because it seems to me from the outside, it's almost perfect in an evil way, right?
Intorka's Launch During COVID-19
00:20:31
Speaker
Where you're 2019, you launched the company. Gaming's doing great. not Not as great as it was, it will be doing, but gaming's doing great all of a sudden. Intorka launches, not related a few months later, COVID. Not related, COVID comes out and gaming just booms, right? And all of a sudden, I'm sure then everyone's like, oh, lots of new players playing these games, lots of new cheats coming in. Was it great timing? Hmm. That's a good question. It wasn't down to us, by the way. don't I don't know. It was a coincidence. We'll stress that enough. We can't stress it enough. it was well today it's in some in funny In some ways, it was great timing.
00:21:11
Speaker
um I mean, a really kind of mundane point of view, actually, it was great timing because it stopped us, I think, making a mistake of getting an office, you know, because it forced us into remote working because there was no, there was literally no choice. We kind of got you, we ended up effectively setting up the company as remote, you know, in, in completely remotely. Um, and realized that actually you could do it completely remote and we're still remote.
00:21:39
Speaker
we don't we know We haven't made, and with costs and stuff like that, we didn't make the mistake, or could have been a mistake, of getting of getting an office um and rent and stuff like that. So it's it's yeah it's it' from that point of view, it's actually kind of helped keep costs down.
00:21:54
Speaker
it's um You know, it's obvious that the increase in gaming as a, as this phenomenon, if you like, was obviously fantastic at the time, but then also, oh sorry. big yeah What we've also, well, unfortunately we've also sort of seen, this is is is the is the opposite of that, obviously, which is coming off the COVID bubble, if you like, with gaming and the kind of, I guess, I don't know, obviously we can debate where we are,
00:22:24
Speaker
in relation to that now, things, you know, things are getting better, but it's obviously been, there's been some tough times. Last year was, with last year was pretty hard. You know, it was, it was hard getting, you know, getting your emails answered, your calls answered, and you know, people had other things on their mind when it came to, um you know, budget, you know, doing their budgets and things. I think for so that it was in that respect, it was actually the kind of the bubble, for whatever better phrase didn't really didn't help.
00:22:54
Speaker
Um, and I think in like the last sort of six months have been really good because it's things as definitely across, you know, across the gaming gaming industry, they feel better. I mean, I was at games come recently with, you know, where you are as well. And certainly to me, it felt like things were definitely on the art gaming had its mojo back. You had a lot more of the publishers and that bigger games had taken bigger stands. Um, so it feels like things are,
00:23:24
Speaker
ah are getting better. And I think the good thing is, I think like all, the one positive after you come through tough times in an industry is it will make you do things better, generally speaking, I think it will, you know, you hopefully the industry learns lessons, not saying it's all, you know, there's that many lessons to learn, but there are definitely some lessons. And I think it'll make the industry stronger. And I think that can only help us as well.
00:23:50
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's funny, ah from the gaming perspective, I see it being good for you, right? But then you mentioned all these other points, which are so valid, right? Companies weren't even sure what to be doing with their budget at this point, right? They're trying to focus on remote work, and how do we get everyone there? It helped you because you realized, hey, we need to do remote work. And not spending on an office is such a great point because most companies, the first thing I would say is, hey, we need to go get an office and be somewhere. And that would have been that would have been a ah quick ending right there. yeah I mean, the other aspect for us when it comes to that actually is the fact that, and I think this will sort of sound naive, but we probably didn't appreciate enough that 90% of our clients are going to be based in the States and yeah actually in particular in the in the on the West Coast.
Remote Working Advantages
00:24:37
Speaker
and I'm slightly exaggerating. but
00:24:39
Speaker
um You know, so the whole point of having an office in a way, I mean, I think as a service provided, one of the main reasons you have an office is actually to have meetings and to have somewhere you can meet clients, et cetera, et cetera. And that would obviously not have worked for us. So as again, it was another sort of learning. And so another reason why it's good that we didn't rush in to get into, you know, that kind of thing and realize, actually, remote is the way for us on this. Yeah. You know, remote enconferences so and So moving on, were you,
00:25:07
Speaker
a gamer growing up. And I asked this because, you know, again, I see head of advertising, brand director, so you clearly had a creative side to you um growing up and wanted to be in the marketing side of things. I would venture a guess. Were you a gamer and was there ever a goal to be in gaming one day?
Andrew's Gaming Journey
00:25:25
Speaker
There was, there was, I don't know which way round to do that, but I was, I was, I remember when I was, I'm trying to think what age I would have been, but probably about 10 getting an Atari, the classic Atari, which, you know, came with combat back then.
00:25:41
Speaker
Um, and, you know, became kind of obsessed with games like Pitfall, The Empire Strikes Back, Vanguard, all that kind of, you know, the Defender. That sort of, that was my ear, that was my entry into gaming. And I was obsessed by it then. I kind of then sort of, I suppose, slightly grew out of it in my late teens, I guess. Um, came back to it again in my late, well, actually in the early twenties.
00:26:10
Speaker
at university, lots of rounds of sensible soccer was a big one with me and my friends, which is the precursor to FIFA, I guess, or yeah EAFC now. And then obviously the likes of Grand Theft Auto would have been to mark my gaming in the so late 20s, early 30s. But then to be honest, chuck then parenthood takes over. yeah Yeah, and takes up all your time. And actually my, I guess my sort of sort of ah the The gaming then it kind takes a big part of your life through your children. And that's that's the that was that's actually when I became sort of fascinated with it as an industry. um It wasn't just a hobby, it was an industry and a business that I became slightly sort of obsessed with um doing something with. With my kids you know playing um they that was Minecraft, Fortnite and FIFA.
00:27:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's probably the triumvirate and then, and then obviously graduating as far too young onto the likes of Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto as they, as young boys, as teenage boys do or young teenage boys do. Um, and that's when I became really interested in it as a business and and it actually coincides that that's kind of what triggered those, kind of that what I mentioned earlier in the conversation when I was at Barclays, looking at gaming, um, from both a sort of a brand reputation point of view and kind of also a commercial opportunity.
00:27:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's cool. I mean, all the anti cheat, right, will help those kids jump into these games and not be swayed away, right? There's, I've, we talked about earlier, my my son is six, and I love playing games with him. And I don't want him to come into these games where it's all toxic and negative and cheaters, right. And I think it's important for companies like you to help protect, well, it's not on you, but like, provide those tools to help protect those kids. It kind of came from, I mean, genuinely, there's a sort of,
00:28:01
Speaker
kind of first-hand experience there, but you could say, oh, is it okay if I click on this? And you go, hang on, let me check that before you click on this. And um and then also, you know, the kind of apocryphal story of of the kid who kind of buys too much on some on on a game, he spends a fortune on the on an on ah on a mobile game and stuff like that. um I've kind of been through all of that. And yeah, you're right. That's the kind of that's actually kind of what A, made made me think of it as a business, but then also that you could do something good within that business.
00:28:30
Speaker
her Your role as chief revenue officer, um, it's a little different than what you've had in the past, but I think it all kind of rolls up to it eventually. I like to understand what skill or what skill set do you tap into most at your current role? So if you had to take a look at kind of your day to day, what are you doing most of the day and what skill is that kind of triggering? Well, that's a good question. That's a good question because as a, in a, in a startup and we're still pretty small, you know, we're still 20 people or so.
00:28:58
Speaker
Um, you end up doing quite a lot. you You end up kind of end, you end up doing much more than kind of would normally sit under your, sit under your job title. I mean, I'm obviously I'm, I'm kind of responsible for the, I suppose the sort of, if you like the public face of the business in terms of presenting that business to our, you know, a to our clients, but also to our prospects. So there's, you know, there's a communication aspect to that. There's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, I guess a creative aspect to it. Um, idea a generation.
00:29:27
Speaker
um But then also a lot of planning when it comes to things like conferences, ah you know ah messaging, think looking ahead oh what we think can when you work at what we think will be strike a chord with potential prospects um at any moment in time.
00:29:48
Speaker
Um, you know, it's, it's, you know, some of it's kind of like, oh, we should be doing a white paper, looking ahead and thinking about what white paper we should be doing. I kind of lead those with the business. Um, but, you know, running the website, it's kind of, all it you become a, in a startup, you do become a bit of a sort of, you know, um, you dabble in almost everything. Yeah, i think like technical stuff. that's the bit i don't Yeah.
00:30:16
Speaker
I always like to say you got to be kind of ah good at everything, but a master of none. That's the phrase I was soic i was trying I sort of sat so couldn't couldn't remember, but it is like yeah that. But i its the nice thing is, I must admit, being in a star shop means I can concentrate a lot more than I used to be able to in run a big business on doing the things that I like.
00:30:39
Speaker
I mean, the biggest is change, you don't have to get something approved by 15 other people to 15 other levels just to go and do it. And you get, it's quite a weird that you, you sort of find yourself amazed at how much you've actually done, but feeling that it's been a lot easier to do it sometimes. And you realize that's because you haven't been waiting outside someone's office to get a signature on a piece of paper or something like that. Or, you know, all that kind of board of bureaucratic nonsense. Um, so yeah, remove the layers, right? Completely. I mean, it's a dream. I don't think, I don't think I could go back to that.
00:31:09
Speaker
what What's the aspect of your job that you dislike the most?
00:31:19
Speaker
Probably chasing payments. It's the the fight the fight i mean the finance stuff. Do you know what I mean?
Challenges in Business Finances
00:31:27
Speaker
kind of i you know i'm obviously sort of yeah um I'm obviously British, so were quite kind of reserve we don't like confrontation, et cetera, et cetera.
00:31:35
Speaker
So that kind of, um you know, would you mind paying us on time? Couldn't make us feel uncomfortable. No, but seriously, I mean, it's that sort of, it's is it's the sort of, it's that, yeah, the the finances, I guess is probably the way to to put it that. Although I'm not actually doing that. I'm not the, contrary to what one of my clients thought, I'm not the financial director. my My wife is a finance person. So whenever we need to call someone and yell at them for something, I just skip her the phone and say, Hey,
00:32:01
Speaker
That's all you, go go make enemies. Proper finance people are so good at them, they just don't care. No, right? it's You got to get rid of that that feeling, and I don't know how she does it. Exactly. If you were going to start your own gaming studio today, and you need to just start thinking about anti-cheat measures, at what point in the development process do you start thinking, hey, we need to be thinking about this.
Early Anti-Cheat Considerations for Developers
00:32:23
Speaker
Is it alpha? Is it beta? Is it sooner? It comes back to what sort of game you're doing.
00:32:29
Speaker
But if, you know, to, to, to, but if it's, if I was, if we were, if it was a kind of a shooter battle royale multiplayer, whatever, which this, you know, really excuse the pun is in the, is in the target for, um, you know, for for, for the cheat industry, I would start, it's before alpha. I mean, it it's, it's, it's just doing, it's often just doing the, risk I mean, the, you know, often the sun, some of the first stuff you can do is just research. Um, looking at, you know, if it's, they will be.
00:32:58
Speaker
most likely there will be games similar to the one you're developing i already that are out there. Do you know what I mean? If you're doing a battle royale, look at what's happening with other battle royales. Investigate the cheats around those games. See how they're cheats. See what you're goingnna be um what you're going to with. See which regions those cheats come with. Those those cheats are be where they're being developed, where they're being sold, what the retailer market is there. You can do it a huge amount to prepare yourself by looking at what the problems of other games, I suppose, is one way of putting in it. There are some, I mean, you know we see there are some, there are cheat developers who kind of almost, wouldn't say they focus on games in beta or alpha, but they certainly make sure they're the first to have a cheat out for those games. um And so yeah it's about knowing who they are. no it's it's yeah it's It's being prepared, isn't it? It's a huge step.
00:33:50
Speaker
And then I guess also just in terms of, and you know, but this isn't my area of expertise, but in terms of actually developing the game, thinking about, mean I suppose it's it's it's a tricky one because obviously a lot of what makes a battle royale fun is also what makes cheats target it. And that's the tricky thing in a way. It's kind of unique. It's very hard to, you know, you're never going to have no cheats, but it's just looking for any opportunities where you can kind of trip them up or you can kind of maybe reduce the um likelihood um
00:34:22
Speaker
Yeah, start early. I mean, it's obviously what we would say, but start early and yeah research and yeah know the problems before they become problems. Yeah, I think that's an interesting step. I don't know, again, why I don't think about it, but like there's tons of battle royale games out there. There's tons of extraction shooters, whatever type of game you're making, right? like Google the cheats that are out there, see what's existing out there, and you can you can put in Maybe you can't put in preventative measures right away, but you can put in roadblocks to try and block people or or dissuade people from doing that. And yeah and talk and and you the other thing would be to talk, we don't you know just to be clear, we don't do anti-cheat software. That's not what we do. um And so you know one of the one of the things would be to talk to other developers, publishers of those games that are getting kind of cheated and find out what they're doing, what anti-cheat solutions are they using.
00:35:14
Speaker
Because one thing that I would definitely stress is there's no silver bullet. There's no one solution. You can't just put one anti-cheat solution in, I think, job done. Because it's not like that. They all do different things. Some are better at one sort of thing than another, et cetera, et cetera. I was actually speaking to a prospect the other day. They described their execution as a sort of Frankenstein's monster, all different parts put together. And they were being kind of funny about it, but actually there's some sort of, actually there's some truth, you know, the really important message out of that is it will require different things for different aspects of the kind of threat community, if you like. Have you come across any cheats that just boggled your mind like, wow, I can't believe they're doing this.
00:36:06
Speaker
I mean, i I was surprised. I mean, one of the things that's, they've been around a while, but it's getting taught to talked about more now, are DNA cheats, direct memory access.
Introduction to DMA Cheats
00:36:20
Speaker
um And the thing that, i I don't know if you know, but they basically enable people that you you end up with a cheater will end up with two screens. And it basically, in particular simply, it means that they can, they're playing the game on one screen and cheating on another. And so they're basically cheating, but there's no cheat injected into the gaming PC. So as you see meet up immediately make you can sort of see that's going to be hard to detect. And it is, if they are hard to detect, not impossible, but they are hard to detect. And, you know, and that was, that's kind of one of the sort of, I guess, one of the new things, but the thing that, bolt but that kind of surprised me, I guess, in a way I shouldn't be surprised because
00:37:04
Speaker
We already know that cheats can be expensive. But you know this means people are investing in a effectively a second PC and all and lots of other little yeah gizmos and stuff to make them do this. And they're spending a couple of thousand bucks. It's getting a lot cheaper now, I should say. But you know it they it's quite a quite within the realms of possibility for someone to spend two grand just to to be able to do that. And you think, really? No, man.
00:37:29
Speaker
and they're doing it to get around some, and ironically, the reason people were doing that as get is to get around the better anti-cheat solutions that are out there. You know, it's just worth it, painting you in their minds, it's worth investing because this gets you around, whatever, I'm not gonna say their names, but it gets you around their anti-cheat, which otherwise you can't, and that sort of thing. You don't need to do this for that anti-cheat, it's kind of...
00:37:53
Speaker
I have an old graphic card I'm debating on updating and here you are telling me people have multiple computers running cheats on them and and then maybe I'm just being cheap over here. Yeah, there's some, I mean, you go, if you type it into YouTube, you can see people literally doing an entire DMA setup and showing you how to do it. Um, and it's, yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of, it's dedicated, they're dedicated, sadly. Have you messed around with any of these cheats to test them out, see how they work? Not me personally, but no, the business we do, we we have, we have people who do that all that all day long. um How many yeah machines have been destroyed from viruses or anything like that?
00:38:31
Speaker
But we're very careful, shall we say. We're very careful. But but in in doing our testing, we do get banned a fair bit. But fortunately, as we're often doing it, you know, we'll be doing it for clients. If you're doing it for a client today, like when you do say, hey, we got banned, can you unban this? Like, is it cool like that?
00:38:47
Speaker
Well, it is when you're doing it for them, obviously. yeah you have to have that we have to have We have to have agreed already. But yeah, no, I mean, that's kind of we we do we we we do a lot of cheat testing and stuff. And planningtin yeah, so that there are there are people in the team who spend a lot of time cheating. um or And actually got a lot of time finding cheats that just simply don't work.
00:39:09
Speaker
yeah Uh, and it's, yeah, you'd be surprised at how much, so again, it shows the lengths to which people go is that it's not a case of just, it's not like this downloading an app. These things, there's quite a, but it's quite a process to go through. Um, and it very often the instructions are wrong or it doesn't load the first time, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Um, but you know, again, these, these, the, the, the, particular the, the, the resellers achieves are incredibly professional now. They'll have customer care departments. The department's probably one person, but they have a customer care team. I saw the other day, and I've been dying out on this for a while, but an ad, I guess it is a it was on disc, I think it was on Discord, from a cheap reseller with a job ad for a media manager.
00:40:02
Speaker
which Which I just thought was great. And the researchers are effectively the marketing advertising arm, if you like, of the teaching industry, but still to be hiring a media manager. I thought, wow. I think there's a few game studios who don't have a media manager. Right. That is insane. Any ah interesting KPIs you can share? I mean, you mentioned earlier, you could see which countries are coming from. What are the highest kind of bad actors around?
00:40:31
Speaker
Um, I mean, it's, it's, it's global is the one thing I think there's often a bit of a kind of a ah stereotype that cheating really is a big, is a much bigger deal in the, in APAC region. And in lot that's where all the cheats have been developed. It's kind of.
00:40:46
Speaker
I mean, it is a problem there, but it's a problem over it's a problem in the West as well. I'd say the bulk of the key devs we're following at the moment are probably US, European, maybe Russian. It's pretty spread. it's It's kind of pretty evenly spread now. Any interesting KPIs? I mean, for me, it's always that one. It's the one I mentioned earlier about how you know, during a beta test, you could have 75 cheats available on a game within a, within a matter of days. I think that's, I think that's pretty incredible. People are quick, man. Like you said, business is booming. We got to start filming videos on these cheats and make sure we get them on Tik TOK. Yeah. Well, that's, I mean, that's, that's the, the, the, the sort of the marketing arm of it is it's, it's, it's impressive. You know, they are, they have very impressive social forums,
00:41:39
Speaker
They do a lot of YouTube advertising. They do an increasing amount, you mentioned it, an increasing amount on TikTok. It's big. It's crazy. Andrew, this has been an eye-opening and amazing conversation. I got to learn that there's a whole other vertical out there of just cheating and people building out content creators and things
Intorka's Mission for Fair Gaming
00:42:00
Speaker
like that in that. And it's fascinating. And I love what Intorka is doing. I love how you're taking a social listening ass approach to it because there must be chat conversation going on. it And ah this is just all very informative to me. So thank you so much for coming out today. Before we do wrap today, is there anything you would like to just talk about or share?
00:42:17
Speaker
all all All I want to say is just um is a well done to everyone and a thank you to everyone who, like us, spends their time trying to keep gaming fair and safe. If you want to find anything else, if you want to find more ah about Entorca, please look at our website or addentorca.com or you can also find us on LinkedIn as well. Thank you.
00:42:40
Speaker
And we'll, yeah, thank you. And we will have links to enterica.com to their LinkedIn, to all their information that they're doing. They really are doing great stuff and they're working with games that you do know and you do play and they are keeping it safe. So this has been a really informative, like I said, Andrew, thank you so much for coming out today. We will see you at the next community clubhouse as well at GDC and thank you for all that you do. Thank you very much, Greg. Cheers.