Last month, Blizzard promised to ban anybody who cheats in Overwatch, no second chances. It looks like they’re following through.
Overwatch has only been out for a bit more than a week, and Blizzard is already showing cheaters and hackers the door. First up, users of a popular Overwatch cheat program began reporting bans en masse yesterday, to the point that the program’s creators have shut down authentication servers until they can figure out what to do.
An image of the initial reaction, courtesy of gibkeeg.
According to PC Gamer, some people are even reporting bans that span multiple copies of the game. “Bought the game again,” said one alleged cheater. “Didn’t hack on it at all, just wanted to enjoy the game a bit. Two days later — banned again. Bought the game… again. But before doing that, I deleted Overwatch and launcher completely. Enjoyed it again without cheating only for a day.” They claim they even tried altering hard drive IDs, MAC address, BiosDate and buying a VPN, but they still kept getting banned.
Meanwhile in China, Blizzard and partner NetEase have been swinging the banhammer like a Reinhardt surrounded by Tracers that have finally, mercifully been frozen by a Mei ult, thank the pluperfect heavens. Earlier today, they announced a 1572-person ban wave. Not only that, they revealed the username of everybody who’d been banned. Savage.
In case it wasn’t already apparent, the moral of the story is pretty simple here: Don’t cheat. Don’t “experiment” with cheat tools. Don’t cheat in a box or with a fox. Don’t even think about cheating. If you have an issue with sleepwalking and have been known to shamble to your PC and type the words “Overwatch hacks” into Google, start wearing oven mitts to bed. Or, if that strikes you as uncomfortable, maybe just cut off your hands. If a bomb’s about to detonate and you think the code to disarm it might be “Overwatch hacks”, you’re probably wrong.
Think that covers all the bases. Have I made myself clear?
Comments
51 responses to “Thousands Of Overwatch Players Have Already Been Banned For Cheating”
Good…. if true about the multiple accounts thing thats the best thing that could happen to (non professional) competitive gaming.
Glad blizz is taking the hardline.
Yeh that’s pretty amazing if it’s a more systematic user ban. People have much more to lose, and greater inconvenience trying to cheat with an isolated account.
And better yet – starting early. No waiting 3 months for the douches to ruin it for the rest of the player base. Great work from Blizzard.
Nope, thats bullpoops. 😀
Hacks works, buying new account works, so you can get some time to keep hacking on new one.
Totaly worth the poopus 40$ for having good troll time with schnoodles that cry so nice and loud. Its cheaper than going out in city. Its worth even buying 2 accounts per week. People get so maaad! Hell ya! :))
Why you have to be mad?!?
Is just a hack! =))
I really want, as a person currently studying law and justice, for there to be a legitimate law against hacking or cheating within games and programs. And I believe that I have come up with a real argument against the violation of cheating within games. With real consequences to follow prosecution like, a ban from using the device on which the prosecution initiated the alleged hack/cheat. A strike system, and financial compensation for the publisher/developer (Damages) should they apply.
My argument is this, also keep in mind I have the idea and it isnt flushed out to the full extent, I just want to share it, also the right agreement would need to be kept to and agreed to by all players prior to online play. If it’s a “consumable product” I have bought then I have a right to that product to work accordingly, while consumable product stands for a product that I consume for entertainment. if someone is violating that for me or for hundreds of people, then he or she is in violation of my right to consume that product as intended. If thats the case, the company (Who currently has the server or game operation) then reserves their the right to sue the individual who has been hindering the ability of others to consume that product as it was intended by a 3rd party or its current owner respectively.
Of course other details would need to be flushed out, I mean I’m not talking about giving a kid the death penalty for hacking in CS. But I think there should be real consequences for the actions that really do destroy gaming on a day to day basis. And these people just reoffend in different games, or buy another copy. They should be banned from computer/console gaming for a period of time. And there should be an independent council that does this, not some court. So it would be written into law, but done outside the courts, just registered threw them. for christ sakes, I’ll head it up! If I got the support to do so.
Awesome to hear!
Also well written amusing article.
Soon cheaters will run rampant. It’s a matter of time.
What gives you that idea? It’s a couple of weeks in, and Blizzard has banned over 1500 players already, and that appears to just be the stats for Chinese players. Those same players aren’t even able to buy another copy to get around it. The only way I see cheaters running rampant at all is if Blizzard just stops going after cheaters, which isn’t going to happen.
previous personal experience with Blizzard’s tittles like diablo and wow. A ban wave means that their code is compromised.
Don’t worry, buying new account is cheaper than going out in city with friends. Totaly worth the cheap 40$ this game costs to troll again for 1 week till next ban. And repeat.
Sorry for you, but if you think you can’t get new account you’re wrong. Since all kind of shops sells this game, easy to buy, register and play 1 week atleast till they discover you again. 😀
Beauty of those games, you don’t loose any progress so no f*cks given about the accounts. <3
Most people are getting banned within 24 hours of buying a new copy. What is more likely; that cheaters will buy a copy of $40 Overwatch every day or two just to troll for a few hours, or just go back to Counterstrike GO where they can troll to their heart’s content?
Good to know. Glad I got a refund on this game. The 20 tickrate is beyond horrible, small maps, you have to be terrible to miss enemies, not enough content, some heroes having an I win button is bad design.
You’d think all the different gimmicks would be annoying but they’re not!
Glad you got a refund on this game?
Because of the bans?
A cheater would say that…
Suffer in your jocks cheaters.
Yep, people who don’t cheat don’t search hacks to begin with. Let alone download it and “not hack at all”.
People who don’t cheat aren’t aware of the forums where people go to discuss the hacks
Unless they’re a reporter I guess. Kotaku had to get that screenshot from somewhere!
or you know some maybe didnt cheat? i mean look at darksouls 3 pick an item off the ground YOUR CHEATING – BANNED!
could be the same thing as it cant find out who it was on your team or game even that cheated so every one got banned.
I like to think Blizzard are a bit better at this sort of thing that FromSoft who took an eternity to fix a bug that caused your weapon to degrade faster at more FPS.
if they didn’t cheat, they wouldn’t be posting their experiences on a forum for cheaters. I mean really use some common sense. Also none of the quotes in this article imply that these users are complaining saying “I’m 100% innocent”, a lot of them seems to be just saying “account X is innocent, but I got banned anyway because I cheated on account Y”
Suck it. I love it when cheaters get banned.
If only all developers had the guts to ban cheaters on the first offence.
i wish people also didnt have emotions i to am a robot….
Er…?
The problem is that most developers don’t have Blizzard’s customer base. Blizzard banning several thousand users is not even a blip in their bottom line or customer demographic breakdown, they can afford to do it. But for a smaller developer that manages to sell say 200k units (being really generous here)? 2k users is 1% of their customer base.
If they’ve already got the money from the sale. Does it matter ?
Look here! *points furiously* This! Everybody do this. Ban the people who can’t invest the time to get good enough at a game that resort to cheating at the first chance they can.
I can’t tell if you’re for or against these bans.
BOTH!
Ubisoft could learn a lesson or two here.
Ubisoft dont spend millions on sever monitering, they would rather save money.
It’s unfortunate. Rainbow Six Siege and the Division had such great promise but were both ruined by their inability to curb the massive waves of hackers that eventually took over the game.
I doubt if Vivendi manage the take over of Ubisoft things will change much at all.
I am pretty sure I came across my first hacker last night. They were using their ultimate pretty much all the time.
I lke the name and shame part the most. They should publish a list of every cheater and what they were banned for.
Firstly… Bastion is cheat enough (though I still like playing him at times….I record my Plays of the Game and upload them to YouTube)
Secondly; what did the cheats actually do? Auto aim, god mode, extra damage? I’ve been playing since open beta and have seen come crazy shots in the death cam where I died instantly or when the little crosshair wasn’t even on me – but I didn’t think to much of it.
I have seen a tracer spamming ultimate a and zipping around way more than the cool down would allow.
I have seen Reinheart without a breakable shield. Literally my whole team punishing the shield for 60 seconds.
I have also seen on my own team and reported a Mcree who couldn’t miss a headshot. Ever. I know there are some freaks with aim. I used to be damned good at CS in 1.5 but this was just stupid.
All of this in the last 2 days.
That being said I still managed to fuck up a lot of these people. Used Mei to constantly block mcrees line of sight and troll the hell out of him. Flanked and bombed the Reinheart with Tracer. The only annoying one was the tracer.
Tracer is annoying even without hacking. I started playing tracer the other day, Got something like 18 killstreak because the enemy team barely paid attention to their flanks and I reset or zip away constantly. I feel like I can hear their Mercy player scream either to them or at home to him/herself. They were horrendously bad at protecting their Mercy and Widowmaker.
I believe this is the most common cheat.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/3u3zj8/20_tick_discussion/
That’s much faster than I would’ve expected from Blizzard given their preference for ban waves as seen in Diablo and WoW. While the waves are quite large no one appreciates watching cheaters go unpunished for months and months (or the near entirety of a season).
I’ve only ever had once instance so far playing Overwatch where I thought BS, checked enemy team, no widowmaker, yet the enemy tracked me through the wall before I even appeared, wasn’t hit by sonic arrow or anything to show where I am but kill cam showed him track me through wall then wait for me to appear in window and bang, dead.
I’ve been accused of this as Bastion during the open beta and a ‘play of the game’, but what was actually happening was I was listening to footsteps. Could’ve been that, perhaps? (Although frustrating, most of the lighter/faster DPS characters don’t make footsteps that you can hear form far away. Which is weird in the case of McCree because y’know… spurs, right?)
I had some wired shit happening this evening where people coming out of different buildings and i could see them like widowmaker, but we had no widowmaker and i was blasting away on Reaper. I have a feeling there may be some bugs like that lingering, i know we saw enough of them in the beta.
haha this is great. people who cheat are the worst
Best news i’ve seen this week!
Nothing makes me more giddy than the salty tears of a cheat.
This must be the first competitive shooter on PC to attract cheaters.
Is there a point you’re making? It’s not really clear.
Now i just can’t wait for Blizzard to ban the toxic racist players that are out there.
they dont get banned for toxicity, just get muted like in Dota2. So they can only communicate via emote wheel
Made a Kotaku account to tell you ‘Don’t cheat in a box or with a fox.’ had me in tears hahaha
Already exists.
Have a look into Jagex vs Impulse Software. They created some botting software for Runescape and were sued by Jagex.