The latter is basically how it goes with Counter-Strike 2 which doesn't have kernel level anti-cheat.
Well, maybe not "everyone" is cheating, but there's very little punishment to cheating in that game for those who do. Do it too blatantly and get reported an cordoned off into "low trust" matchmaking, or just closet cheat with total impunity.
I suppose this then drives people to third party matchmaking services like FACEIT that do use kernel level anti-cheat (which has its own separate game culture issues to replace the cheating issue).
Well, maybe not "everyone" is cheating, but there's very little punishment to cheating in that game for those who do. Do it too blatantly and get reported an cordoned off into "low trust" matchmaking, or just closet cheat with total impunity.
I suppose this then drives people to third party matchmaking services like FACEIT that do use kernel level anti-cheat (which has its own separate game culture issues to replace the cheating issue).