Game Security Metrics Every Studio Should Track
You can't improve what you don't measure. Yet many game studios deploy anti-cheat solutions without establishing clear metrics for success. In this post, we'll cover the key performance indicators that help you understand your security posture.
The Core Metrics
1. Detection Rate
The most obvious metric: what percentage of cheaters are you catching? But this number alone is misleading without context.
- Known cheat detection: Signatures for identified cheats
- Behavioral detection: Anomalies in player actions
- Memory tampering detection: Unauthorized modifications
A high detection rate for known cheats is expected. The real challenge is detecting new, previously unseen exploits.
2. False Positive Rate
Perhaps more important than detection rate. A 99% detection rate means nothing if you're also banning 1% of legitimate players.
Industry benchmarks suggest a false positive rate below 0.01% is acceptable for most games. Competitive titles often aim for even lower — 0.001% or less.
Tip: Implement a tiered response system. Low-confidence detections trigger monitoring, not immediate bans.
3. Time to Detection
How long does a new cheat operate before you detect it? This "window of exposure" is critical:
- Hours: Excellent — you're likely using behavioral analysis
- Days: Good — active monitoring and updates
- Weeks: Concerning — purely signature-based approach
- Months: Critical — major security gap
4. Cheat Prevalence
What percentage of your active player base is using cheats? This requires estimating the unknown — cheaters you haven't detected yet.
Methods for estimation include:
- Honeypot accounts that attract cheat sellers
- Statistical analysis of performance distributions
- Player report correlation
5. Recidivism Rate
How many banned players create new accounts and continue cheating? This measures the effectiveness of your hardware bans and account linking.
High recidivism indicates:
- Weak hardware fingerprinting
- Easy account creation
- Low barrier to re-entry
Operational Metrics
Response Time
When a new cheat is reported, how quickly can you:
- Analyze the cheat's behavior
- Develop a detection signature
- Deploy the update to production
With Sentinel's live patching system, steps 2 and 3 can happen in minutes rather than days.
Performance Overhead
Security has a cost. Track:
- CPU usage from security checks
- Memory footprint of the SDK
- Network bandwidth for telemetry
- Impact on frame times
Players will disable security features (or the game) if performance suffers.
Telemetry Completeness
Are you collecting the data you need to make decisions?
- What percentage of sessions send complete telemetry?
- Are there gaps in coverage (platforms, regions)?
- Is the data arriving in time for real-time decisions?
Business Impact Metrics
Ultimately, security exists to protect the business:
- Player retention: Do players quit due to cheaters?
- Revenue impact: Are cheaters affecting monetization?
- Reputation: What's the sentiment around cheating?
- Support costs: How many tickets relate to cheating?
Building a Dashboard
We recommend a security dashboard that shows:
- Daily detection counts by category
- Rolling 7-day false positive rate
- Average time-to-detection for new threats
- Cheat prevalence estimate (updated weekly)
- Performance overhead (P95 frame time impact)
Sentinel's SDK includes built-in telemetry for most of these metrics. See our documentation for integration details.
Summary
Effective game security requires continuous measurement. By tracking these metrics, you can:
- Justify security investments to stakeholders
- Identify gaps in your protection
- Measure improvement over time
- Balance security with player experience
Want help setting up security metrics for your game? Contact our team for a consultation.