[crzylgs]

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how do you plan on preventing cheating? without a central server each "dealer" computer can make whatever modifications to the code it likes.

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So, how many PC games have you decompiled and fixed so as to beat your buddies?

The server program and clients are not going out to you as source code, you get it in finished form on a disk like turbotax. I imagine the authors can insure that if you mess with it, it won't run. Just my assumption, I am no computer geek.

Tuff

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First of all I haven't done it myself but there are thousands of people cheating at online games right now (OMG HAX) but that's beside the point here since client-side hacks would be useless against well-designed server software.

What I was getting at is this: if there are going to be hundreds (or more) of these "mini-servers" how are you going to verify they're all using your "approved" software? With so much money at stake, I guarantee to you that the server software will be hacked and rigged within a week of hitting the market. And honestly this is probably a much smaller problem than the problem of payment processing.