Terrorists and counter-terrorists alike are now being watched in "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" (CS: GO), as the developers of the game will now be tracking player behavior and activity to facilitate matchmaking.
Valve, the developer and publisher studio of the competitive multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS) will now be tapping their proprietary online game market Steam to analyze the users' data and consider several factors outside of "CS: GO" to connect their users to other players. This system is aptly named, Trust Factor, or simply Trust, and expands upon the game's initial matchmaking system called Prime Matchmaking, which was launched last year.
Due to the game's ambitious nature and its massive potential for e-sports, Prime Matchmaking was perhaps not enough to determine a fair gameplay session for the players. This is why the Trust system was implemented.
Regarding the shift, Valve has stated, "What if the Prime system was re-imagined using a wider range of factors? We started with that question, and have been experimenting with matching players using observed behaviors and attributes of their Steam account, including the overall amount of time they had spent playing 'CS: GO,' how frequently they were reported for cheating, time spent playing other games on their Steam account, etc."
This might come as a shock to some players as the system could get quite invasive. That said, Steam users with a clean track record from "CS: GO," or Steam itself, should have nothing to worry about, unless the system proves ineffective or buggy. For users who favor only the Prime Matchmaking system, Valve has given gamers the freedom to use either or both, meaning the Trust system can be turned off. Unfortunately, they have not exactly outlined the exact factors which will be considered in the Trust system.
Still, the new Trusts system has apparently worked, and "CS: GO" game sessions are now seeing fewer incidents of player reports and bans, even from users who are not ranked up enough to assume or use Prime matchmaking. Because of this, Valve has opted to use Trust as the new default matchmaking system for the FPS, though not exclusively as aforementioned.
