Idea to solve a big part of the cheater problem

No backlash from sane people.

It would demonstrate an integrity rare in modern game companies and a commitment to competition over profit.

They use Easy anticheat. This product, it is awesome, it often bans me from servers I set games up on, simply the best product for inducing murderous rage from a second party vendor. Ever.

Anyways, when they get serious they can try wiping all the epic games accounts, it might help, but they'd likely need their own internal group to police balance and fairness, you know the things a game needs to be healthy.

Another solution would be to lock out Epic accounts from the general player pool, and force the crossplay option to always be off for them.
It sucks for those who play legit on Epic, but that is the only real option to combat cheating, thanks to the hundreds of thousands of free accounts that were made when this was available.
Granted, there are cheaters on the Steam version as well, but it is not as widespread as it is on Epic, since the game has never been free on Steam.

It wouldn't solve anything, before Epic there were also cheaters galore. They just made it easier for them by giving the game away for free. They probably lose a lot of money with this, because even the most discreet ones inject their accounts and don't pay for a single DLC or cosmetics.

They should probably increase the ban waves by doing a periodic account check. I don't think a new anticheat is the right thing to do either, I don't want the typical kernel level invasive anticheat that there is no way to uninstall properly and that surely won't solve the problem either.

I’m not sure that would even do anything. In some countries, the game costs a fraction of our prices. They can just buy the game in bulk there.

I'm not sure if they can do this, but any Epic copy that hasn't been used at this point is disabled. Any that they have backed up in their "pool" is useless.

Sure, cheaters may have several that they've primed for cheating, and those will still get through, but it's better than the THOUSANDS they have queued up. They can't possibly manually get to them all. Let them try.

Wouldn't help hackers can inject themselves into any lobby, regardless of platforms or even CrossPlay on or off.

Don't know if this is possible or even legal but that would help alot against the cheater problem.

The fact that BHVR almost certainly doesn't have the legal right to do this kind of trumps everything else.

Unless there was something in the terms of service, of course you do. Just because something was given as a promotional offer does not mean it wasn't given.

I bought DbD on sale, some people paid full price, some people got it for free, but we all have the same license.

I'm surprised people are entertaining this as if its an idea that's even remotely possible.

This also wouldn't be an explanation from a Dev, this would be an explanation from BHVR's lawyers, and I doubt they are on the forums. At best you would have this relayed by a community manager.

The EULA that people agree to gives them a license to use the game. Within that license are a lot of conditions where the license may be revoked (19 specified ones, plus a few general, plus what happens if the game shuts down), but 'failure to use the product' is not one of those conditions.

And even if there was a condition, there's also the issue of whether the EULA would be enforceable over such an issue (just because you agree to something in a contract does not mean its binding if the laws of the country disagree) and BHVR would be potentially facing lawsuits from any country in the world over the issue.

This is on top of damaging their reputation with Epic Games who likely wouldn't take kindly to the idea of a company back tracking on an agreement to give the product away.

Its amazing how poorly thought out that promotion was, and how we're still paying for it years later. Sadly pandora's box is open, and there's no (legal/moral/ethical/etc) way to close it. The closest thing they could do would be hardware id banning, but thats a pretty extreme response that would still affect innocent people. All they can do is play whack a mole with each account that "awakens" and chooses violence.

It's important to note that free or easily accessible accounts aren’t inherently the problem — plenty of other games like League of Legends and Valorant offer unlimited account creation too, but they don’t suffer from the same overwhelming cheater issues.

The real issue lies in how Dead by Daylight handles cheat detection and enforcement. Without proper behavioral analysis, active in-game monitoring, or meaningful deterrents, even a paid account system wouldn't stop cheaters — it would just slow them down.

A strong anti-cheat system makes free accounts irrelevant to the discussion. If the protection is solid, sock accounts are just wasted effort for cheaters. If the protection is weak, even paid accounts won’t help.

So before trying to patch the surface by limiting accounts, the foundation — the actual anti-cheat infrastructure — needs serious work.

I do not believe that requiring a small payment will deter individuals who are intent on hacking. In today’s world, there are countless ways to generate income, and even individuals without formal employment can afford to purchase multiple copies of Dead by Daylight.

And if they possess sufficient skill, they may still find ways to acquire the game without spending any of their own money.

Damn. I know they don't discuss much about their banning process (nor should they) so I try not to speculate much both due to not knowing the details and understanding why they wouldn't want to share them. I'll refrain from anything further on that aspect of the topic.