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Fall Guys Studio Forced Cheaters To Play Together On Cheater Island

Mediatonic closed it down in favor of harsher penalties for cheating.

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Fall Guys studio Mediatonic has revealed an unusual way of dealing with cheaters that it has since abandoned: It sent them to "Cheater Island," where they were forced to play with other cheaters.

"At launch, we had some of our own cheat detection built into the game. We weren't banning anyone at this point, just gathering data carefully. We wanted to be 100% sure that our cheat detection would only catch people who were legitimately cheating," read a tweet by the official Fall Guys account. "After we confirmed that it was working--We secretly launched Fall Guys Cheater Island."

The Fall Guys Twitter account tweeted a long thread about cheater island, how the studio was overwhelmed by the amount of cheaters trying to play Fall Guys, and its upcoming plans to combat dishonest players. The UK-based studio reemphasized that it's adding Fortnite's anti-cheat system in the coming weeks.

"Our cheat detection system was good but we hadn't expected so many players and we had no idea the lengths that some players would go to cheat. We tried to create a system around honesty," the studio tweeted. "But as soon as we realized we were in an ARMS RACE we called up the experts at Epic."

Infinity Ward did something similar when the Santa Monica-based studio put Call of Duty: Warzone cheaters into the same lobby to try and discourage players from cheating. The popular battle royale still has a huge cheating problem.

Mediatonic decommissioned Cheater Island this week after videos of cheater-filled matches started to spread around social media. The studio said that those videos "made the game look bad" and said future updates should help combat the Fall Guys cheating issue.

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returnofsoma42

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returnofsoma42

I hate to be a stick in the mud but I just don't understand the appeal of Fall Guys. What is it about this game that people like? I guess me being in my early 40's I wouldn't be expected to understand. I grew up in a time when games were simple and multiplayer meant you were in the same room as were the other players.

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Pierce_Sparrow

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Pierce_Sparrow

@returnofsoma42: It's just a dumb, goofy game to mess around in. The minigames are fun and fun to watch. I don't think it's meant to be taken seriously.

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HesamB

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HesamB

@returnofsoma42: well i don't get the appeal of playing with toy trucks and such, the game is basically for children. so it's ok for us to not understand it.

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a0me

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a0me

@returnofsoma42 said:

I hate to be a stick in the mud but I just don't understand the appeal of Fall Guys. What is it about this game that people like? I guess me being in my early 40's I wouldn't be expected to understand. I grew up in a time when games were simple and multiplayer meant you were in the same room as were the other players.

I'm older than you and I enjoy the simple, dumb fun of playing in bursts of 10-20 mins. It was free on PS+ and it takes more skills than it seems; sure there's a component of luck, particularly with team games, but once you get the hang of each game you'll fare a lot better than people who still haven't.

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Xylymphydyte

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Xylymphydyte

@returnofsoma42: I don't get it either. It was Free* on PS+ so I tried it but it seems like a mess. The skill ceiling is pretty low, a lot of the games are heavily leaning on luck, and even if there was a high skill component to winning, it gets erased by the team games where being put on a poorly performing team eliminates you either way. Many of the games also involve being taken out by off camera aspects you can't respond to, or the camera itself has to be facing the right way at the right time to get pertinent information, it's all too random.

I guess it's just enjoyed by those who enjoy the chaos and don't care how the game comes out. I mean, people enjoy Roulette too so different strokes?

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Nabinator

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Nabinator

@returnofsoma42: It's just dumb, simple fun.

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Pierce_Sparrow

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Pierce_Sparrow

Cheating at Fall Guys seems like a dumb way to play this particular game. It's designed to be amusing while playing it. The whole point of the game is to play it for the entertainment and humor of it. If you're that into it that you need to cheat to win, why play at all? There have to be other games out there better served by cheating. Not that anyone should be cheating anyway.

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KLINGON

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KLINGON

They should do this for all games with cheaters!

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so_hai

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so_hai

PC master race for ya.

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HesamB

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HesamB

How sad you must be as a human to cheat at a kids game?

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lionhartwolf

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lionhartwolf

@HesamB: ill preface this by saying I dont play online games. Im not interested in them, but as an avid and admitted "cheater" I can say you have a very narrowmind on the matter. My favorite part about cheats is making them. I love the detective work that goes into finding and altering the values you need to do what you need, but more importantly, I enjoy reshaping games in my own image. Anything I feel like is a flaw I can fix. In that way there is a fine line between cheats and mods. (With a noticeable overlap regardless.)

There is nothing wrong with cheating in a kids game. The problem comes from pretending you are somebody you are not when playing with others. Thats why on some level I think "cheater island" sounds MORE fun. Once the pretense is dropped cheaters can really experiment with the boundries of the game and do things other only wished they could do.

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el_swanno

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el_swanno

@lionhartwolf:

You’re unbelievably narcissistic to come to a video game website and blow your own trumpet about cheating in an online game like you’re some kind of self-adsorbed performance artist.

Have you ever even read the terms and conditions of using any online service? Do you know how much money video game developers and publishers put into getting their product out there? They don’t do it so you can piss all over it and call it art.

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HesamB

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HesamB

@lionhartwolf: i don't care about cheating in single player games. i've been using trainers and shit for 20 years in single player games. but to cheat in an ONLINE game and ruin the experience for other people and waste their time is so low.

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