Cheating in online games poses significant threats to the gaming industry, yet most prior research has concentrated on Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). Competitive genres-such as Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA), First Person Shooter (FPS), Real Time Strategy (RTS), and Action games-remain underexplored due to the difficulty of detecting cheating users and the demand for complex data and techniques. To address this gap, many game companies rely on kernel-level anti-cheat solutions, which, while effective, raise serious concerns regarding user privacy and system security. In this paper, we propose SYNOPTICON, a novel cheating detection framework that leverages user consensus to identify abnormal behavior. SYNOPTICON integrates a lightweight client-side detection mechanism with a server-side voting system: when suspicious activity is identified, clients cast votes to the server, which aggregates them to establish consensus and distinguish cheaters from legitimate players. This architecture enables transparency, reduces reliance on intrusive monitoring, and mitigates privacy risks. We evaluate SYNOPTICON in both a controlled simulation and a real-world FPS environment. Simulation results verify its feasibility and requirements, while real-world experiments confirm its effectiveness in reliably detecting cheating users. Furthermore, we demonstrate the system's applicability and sustainability for long-term game management using public datasets. SYNOPTICON represents a user-driven, consensus-based alternative to conventional anti-cheat systems, offering a practical and privacy-preserving solution for competitive online games.

翻译：在线游戏中的作弊行为对游戏行业构成了重大威胁，然而，既有研究大多聚焦于大型多人在线角色扮演游戏（MMORPG）。由于检测作弊用户难度高，且所需数据和技术复杂，竞技类游戏——如多人在线战术竞技（MOBA）、第一人称射击（FPS）、即时战略（RTS）和动作游戏——相关研究仍相对不足。为填补这一空白，许多游戏公司依赖内核级反作弊方案，这类方案虽有效，却引发了用户隐私和系统安全方面的严重担忧。本文提出SYNOPTICON，一种利用用户共识识别异常行为的新型作弊检测框架。SYNOPTICON集成了轻量级客户端侧检测机制与服务器侧投票系统：当识别到可疑活动时，客户端向服务器投票，服务器汇总投票结果以建立共识，从而区分作弊者与合法玩家。该架构实现了透明性，减少了对侵入式监控的依赖并降低了隐私风险。我们在受控仿真环境与真实FPS环境中对SYNOPTICON进行了评估。仿真结果验证了其可行性与需求满足性，真实场景实验则确认了其在可靠检测作弊用户方面的有效性。此外，我们利用公开数据集证明了该系统在长期游戏管理中的适用性与可持续性。SYNOPTICON为传统反作弊系统提供了一种用户驱动的、基于共识的替代方案，为竞技类在线游戏提供了兼顾实用性与隐私保护的解决方案。