Blizzard Explains Bans for Third Party Hacks and Cheats

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Last week, CheatHappens claimed that Blizzard had banned players for using its own and other third-party "trainers" in single-player campaign and skirmish games of StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty in the developer's mass banning earlier this month.

One of the CheatHappens users, gm0ney, claimed to have never played a single multiplayer game, but was suspended for 14 days for using the trainer program provided by CheatHappens. The email he received from Blizzard listed the reason as: "Offense: Terms of Use Violation - Exploitative Activity: Unauthorized cheat programs ('hacks')".

CheatHappens claims that the user contacted Blizzard and was told, "while single-player games only appear to be you and a computer at first, your achievements and gamer score also carries weight and prestige for your online play."

Shacknews asked Blizzard for more information on these bans and received the following statement from a company representative:

Blizzard Entertainment is not banning StarCraft 2 players just for using single-player cheats. There's been some confusion in the last couple of days about the suspensions and bans meted out to players caught cheating in StarCraft 2. It's important to point out first, that many of the 3rd-party hacks and cheats developed for StarCraft 2 contain both single- and multiplayer functionality. In order to protect the integrity of multiplayer competition, we are actively detecting cheat programs used in multiplayer modes whether there are human opponents or not.

That said, players who opt to use any type of 3rd party hacks do so at their own risk -- there are already built-in cheat codes for StarCraft 2 single-player that can be used safely. Blizzard Entertainment has always taken cheating seriously and will continue to aggressively crackdown on players who cheat in our games.

Please keep in mind that CheatHappens, a site that creates and distributes trainers, is not the best source of information for bannings over the use of the very programs it distributes. Also, the user that claims to have played no multiplayer games was only suspended, not banned.

Blizzard's decision to ban or suspend players using trainers is not surprising, considering that the game is always online and many of these programs could potentially be used online. For those that have truly only used these programs in single-player games, I would hope that they only received suspensions.

If you believe you've been wrongfully banned, please let us know so that we can gather more information on the issue. For now, refrain from using third-party hacks, cheats, or trainers if you value your account.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    October 13, 2010 11:11 AM

    I think these devs should tone down the ban waves. It's getting a little ridiculous what you can't do with your own games.

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      October 13, 2010 11:15 AM

      Nah...keep on banning, I like it.

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      October 13, 2010 11:15 AM

      Your games hahaha

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      October 13, 2010 11:18 AM

      Thats like saying "I can't put a catapult in my back yard that flings shit over at my neighbors house, its getting a bit ridiculous what I can't do on my property."

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        October 13, 2010 11:20 AM

        Not really.

        People should be able to play their own games that involve no one else in whatever manner they please.

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          October 13, 2010 11:22 AM

          I agree. If it's just a matter of Blizzard banning them because of the achievements in SP, then why not allow the user to opt out of getting them in the first place? I hate cheaters in MP but if someone wants to use them in SP then power to them.

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            October 13, 2010 11:24 AM

            if you are gonna cheat in single player, what the point of playing at all? instead of nit-picking over what cheats are allowed its better to just blanket them all and say "no cheating"

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              October 13, 2010 1:00 PM

              If someone is cheating in single player CLEARLY they found a point to doing it.

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                October 13, 2010 1:48 PM

                Exactly.

                Someone may find the game too hard. Someone may just be tired of the game and want to fast forward through it to see the game's storyline play out. Someone may want to just try different tactics and get quick/easier access to the different units.

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                  October 13, 2010 7:57 PM

                  So....use the cheat codes? Why download a hack?

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                    October 13, 2010 8:14 PM

                    Maybe the hacks/trainers offer something the cheat codes don't? I honestly don't know...I don't know what the cheat codes are or what trainers are available. I just think it's silly of Blizzard to ban someone from using such a tool on a single player game.

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            October 13, 2010 2:01 PM

            You can opt out of achievements by not connecting to Battle.net and playing as a guest.

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          October 13, 2010 11:22 AM

          Well yeah, I am talking about multiplayer games. Hence the "neighbor" part.

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          October 13, 2010 11:23 AM

          But they do involve somebody else, the company you're licensing the software from. (for better or worse)

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          October 13, 2010 12:58 PM

          Except you don't own the game, you paid for a license to use the game.

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        October 13, 2010 11:23 AM

        It's nothing like that at all. A better analogy would be "I can't put a catapult in my back yard that flings shit in the direction of my neighbors house, even though it only shoots paper projectiles and I built a fence to stop them from leaving my property, it's getting a bit ridiculous what I can't do on my property."

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          October 13, 2010 11:26 AM

          what? thats a terrible analogy.

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            October 13, 2010 12:02 PM

            No, the only thing that's terrible is your ability to interpret it. The article is talking about people getting banned or suspended for using trainers in single player games. His analogy implied that this somehow affected other people. I fixed it so that the backyard activity correctly represents something which doesn't affect anyone else.

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          October 13, 2010 11:30 AM

          I don't see the sense behind that. I'm talking about multiplayer games. If you use an aimbot you ruin the game for the other players. How can you then say "Its my game I can do what I want"? In singleplayer maybe.

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            October 13, 2010 11:32 AM

            I think I got the news mixed up. This seems to be about achievements etc. What I meant is if it involves other people directly, as mentioned above. Disregard the comment in the context of this singleplayer issue.

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      October 13, 2010 11:19 AM

      I'd ban every last one of you if I could.

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      October 13, 2010 11:20 AM

      you make a game then, then you can do what you want with it. because blizzard can do whatever they want with THEIR game

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        October 13, 2010 11:32 AM

        No. YOU make a game. A video one. Then you'll see. I tell you

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      October 13, 2010 12:10 PM

      cheat in SP fucker

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      October 13, 2010 4:03 PM

      *looking at my screen making downsyndrome faces*

      NOT YOUR GAMES - well, to be more specific - NOT YOUR ONLINE SERVICE. And if you are obtaining achievements that get published via an ONLINE SERVICE - ITS NOT YOUR SERVICE. You break the rules, you eat a bag of dicks.

      'nough said.

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      October 13, 2010 4:58 PM

      It stopped being your own game when Blizzard dropped LAN support and forced everybody to go through Battle.net to play the game.

      You're just renting a game. And Kotick can take it back whenever he wants.

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        October 13, 2010 7:31 PM

        and this is where the game fails. LAN play is the lifeblood of many PC genres still. Look how well CODMW2 is doing compared to previous CODs. Shorter life = less sales. Put LAN back in PC games devs.

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