Are You a Dirty Rotten Xbox Live Cheater?
If you've hacked your Xbox 360 save files in order to falsely inflate your Gamerscore, standby to see your Xbox Live profile sullied for good. If you care at all about Microsoft's meta-scoring system that tracks player achievements in games and assigns them a summary number that cumulatively boasts player prowess, that's good news for the presumably honest majority who've been knocked down the leaderboards by your not-so-average hoodwinking prima donnas.
How do you cheat? You mean you didn't realize you could? (Hey, neither did I.) I'm told it's possible by monkeying with your save files and account info to somehow unlock objectives without actually playing the related games.
The director of programming for Xbox Live, Larry Hryb (aka "Major Nelson") wrote about the crackdown yesterday on his blog, noting that the steps include resetting violators' Gamerscores to zero, making it imposible for them to regain all previously earned achievements (including legitimate ones), and labeling each account as a "cheater" for the entire community to see. In this example, the gamer card says "What happened to their Gamerscore?" with the answer "They've been caught cheating" followed by a link to "Find out more."
Click the latter and you'll see the official policy breakdown. The only controversial point would hypothetically be that gamerscore "corrections" (as Microsoft is politely calling these resets) "will remain permanent without any way to appeal." Hypothetically controversial, because what if Microsoft pulls over the wrong traffic violators? According to their website it's actually a baseless hypothetical, because "the company look[s] for abnormal achievement and gamerscore activity using criteria that identifies users who have used external means to earn achievements without really playing the game," and that they "only correct gamerscores for players who meet the criteria 100%."
The "you've got the wrong guy!" defense is probably bunkum, in other words, as is the even lamer "someone hijacked my account" defense per Microsoft's "terms of use" account policy.
Microsoft's test account example of what a "corrected" account will look like.
Care to see justice in action? Back in December 2006, GamersReports interviewed an Xbox Live user with the Gamertag StripClubDJ who'd apparently broken the "nearly unthinkable 100,000 gamer score," an interview in which StripClubDJ answers the question "How do you do it?" with:
Time consuming and patience will conquer anything. DETERMINATION!!!
Apparently determination laced with flimflam, because here's StripClubDJ's profile as of 3/26.
Replay
Fearless or feckless? Have your say below or pelt me with emails here.
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Aw Microsoft.... There you go telling people that everything we do is wrong. Not saying that cheating is morally justified but neither is condemning those that do. Major Nelson don't tell me you never used at least one Nintendo Super Mario Hack before. If you did then I don't think Luigi would give you a couple of smacks on the face and tell you to kneel in the corner. These people are just kids and there is a kid in all of us. Why not let them have fun. Video games should not have rules. Only in code.
Fsquaredmedia,
Congrats Microsoft, you just single handedly found a way for all the banned XBOX users to sue you for defamation. Anyone who is labeled a cheater can easily go into any small claims court and sue the hell out of you and you will have next to no defense. Even if you did have a defense you will have to disclose HOW you found out and what means. Basically giving all the other hackers in the world a glimpse on the inner workings of your spying. What about is someone sells their XBOX? Is the new owner as guilty as the old owner? How do you protect against that?
Good job, totally screwed yourself Microsoft. Really phoned this one in......
There is a difference between using cheats that are inherintly in the game (aka SMB 3) and altering hardware (or software) to gain an advantage over other rule abiding players. The problem with saying why not let them have fun is that they are ruining it for everyone who is doing legitamately, thus ruining their fun and hours of hard work. If there were no rules then every shot would be a headshot.
Excellent! We at http://punksbusted.com have been fighting against the cheaters in online games for years. As of this posting, we have permanently banned over 84,400 cheaters from our privately owned game servers. We have tracked over 11,350,000 GUIDs and have over 5,300 game servers streaming live game data to us 24/7. All in the name of playing a fair game. Cheaters are punks.
Online games should let those people who are bound to cheat have a few levels or a server where there's auto aim and whatever other cheats there are, and then realize how lame it is to press a button.
And Single-player games should have a way to unlock a sort of developer/God mode, but deactivate achievements so they can still explore a game in a free manner, but not increase their gamerscore.
People... People... People.... For those who don't understand this banning: 1. You agree to their terms of agreement, in which you agree not to cheat 2. These people who are being banned are taken off for using hacks... not cheat code that are built into the game that developers allow you to use 3. How would you feel if you were paying for an XBL membership and every time you signed in to play a game you got cheated out of your money by a hacker? This is a good step in the right direction for the XBL community. Note that they are banning only those who did this to obtain 100% of their gamer score. I'm sure if it was up to the gaming community the rule would have been a little more strict, you do it once then you're gone. Sooo... if you really feel the need to cheat, don't go online and just keep your cheats to yourself. If you really feel proud of yourself for doing absolutely nothing to earn these points then celebrate yourself by yourself.
First off, there is a difference between cheating and hacking.
Cheating is pressing up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, a, b, start, select.
Hacking is modifying software or hardware to achieve a goal not intended by the original design to have an unfair advantage over competition.
Meaning you can't use God Mode on Multiplayer but you can on Single player because your going against AI and not other people.
I realize there was Game Genie to modify HEX in Nintendo games, but like I said, its you vs the computer, not really hacking.
These people being banned modified a file(s) from their xbox hdd or memory card to manipulate their gamer score, which is violation of the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Terms of Agreement and End User License Agreement.
They can still play and compete and use their account, they just cant gain ranks.