How This Squid Game Clone Got xQc Kicked Off The Internet
xQc has caused plenty of commotion in the streaming community, leading to a number of bans over the years — but the latest incident that led to him being kicked offline wasn't really his fault. Instead, xQc and his fans were surprised to see the streamer getting ousted from the internet by IP-hacking trolls exploiting the free-to-play indie title "Crab Game."
xQc was one of the victims of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on streamers playing "Crab Game." According to Dexerto, his connection timed out after hosting a public "Crab Game" match, which to the streamer taking to Twitter to let his followers know what happened.
"Internet is out, maybe some random got my IP from the games were playing, maybe not. Impossible to tell," tweeted xQc. "[I don't know] what's happening. I'll stream if possible.
"Crab Game" challenges players with a gauntlet-style competition featuring children's games like "Red Light, Green Light," until one is left victorious. Think "Fall Guys," except much more closely based on the trending Korean television show, "Squid Game." It's probably the closest thing that fans can get to a "Squid Game" video game at this point, except maybe the ones built in "Roblox." "Crab Game" developers slyly claim that the game is "definitely not based on any online streaming pop culture Korean TV shows," but fans know better.
"Crab Game" is currently available for free on Steam, which is another reason why it's been so easy to play. Unfortunately, the game apparently exposes the IP addresses of anyone who hosts a game from their own connection. This makes streamers prime targets for trolls looking to bombard them with DDoS attacks — and xQc hasn't been the only one.
Crab Game streamers are receiving DDoS attacks
DDoS attacks involve spamming an IP address with so much traffic that it's forced to go offline, effectively terminating the target's internet connection. Depending on whether the user has a static or dynamic IP, resetting can be as easy as rebooting a router or calling an internet provider to reset your IP. Still, the threat of DDoS attacks add an annoying layer to an otherwise entertaining game.
xQc wasn't the only one to get booted off the internet, either. Fellow streamers Chance "Sodapoppin" Morris and Nick "nmplol" Polom also received a DDoS-related boot after one of their public "Crab Game" matches.
"Our IP got leaked during a silly game Chance was playing," nmplol vented on Twitter. "So sadly I have to cancel the stream tomorrow ... and [I'm going to] work on getting the IP changed! Thanks dude who is stuck in 2015 still booting people off!"
Many streamers — including those from the Offline TV, like Disguised Toast, LilyPichu, and Scarra — have been able to play "Crab Game" live without any consequences. However, they reportedly played on private servers, whereas xQc and Sodapoppin hosted public matches to play with fans. Unfortunately, that seemed to invite the DDoS attackers. So what does the developer of "Crab Game" have to say about all of this?
Developer explains where Crab Game went wrong
"Crab Game" creator Daniel "Dani" Sooman acknowledged the problem after learning about DDoS attacks on xQc and other streamers, apologizing for his coding choices and issuing a warning to streamers who are interested in the game.
"If you're a streamer you should probably stay away from public lobbies in 'Crab Game' for a few days, until I update it, as you risk getting DDOS'd currently," he wrote on Twitter. "I apologize to everyone who experienced this, I'm an idiot."
As explained by Sooman, "Crab Game" uses Facepunch Steam P2P networking, an easy-to-implement but not very secure solution that can "sometimes leak your IP." Sooman claims that the original networking code seemed like a "fast and good solution" at the time, but this ended up leading to more issues. Because of this, he plans to make some changes to protect players.
"I'm changing it to the new and more secure Steam Networking now, but it might take a few days, as I have to change a lot of my networking code," Sooman said. "Sorry to everyone who was affected by this, I should've done more research before implementing networking the way I did."
So it seems like streamers will have to hold off on playing "Crab Game" — at least for a little bit — while the developer works on securing the network. Thankfully, xQc tweeted that his internet was fixed and didn't seem to have any hard feelings about it, despite the unexpected day off. If you're worried about your personal IP, you might want to wait a bit before playing "Crab Game." Luckily, there are a few titles similar to "Squid Game" to tide you over until Sooman issues the fix.