Small number of players works in favor of a whitelist. People shouldn't be playing with randoms, they should be playing with friends.
Game companies invade our privacy and destroy our computer freedom with ineffective malware tier rootkit solutions only to fail to solve the problem in the end. Their business model depends on enabling people to play with any random from anywhere in the world. They are forced to trust untrustworthy clients. The truth is people should not allow their computers to talk to strangers.
I presume "whomever they wish" means anyone who is not a cheater. In that case they need a whitelist. Because without one, every player is a potential cheater. Non-whitelist solutions don't match what I presume they want. They asked for NotCheater, server returned MaybeCheater.
Without a whitelist, it's only a matter of time before an actual cheater joins their server and ruins their fun.
Game companies invade our privacy and destroy our computer freedom with ineffective malware tier rootkit solutions only to fail to solve the problem in the end. Their business model depends on enabling people to play with any random from anywhere in the world. They are forced to trust untrustworthy clients. The truth is people should not allow their computers to talk to strangers.