Call Of Duty Bans Nearly Half A Million Players
Here's what we know about the Call of Duty bans so far.
This article is more than 2 years old
Though frowned-upon, gaming cheats can be an extremely fun experience – in single-player games. Multiplayer cheating, however, might be fun for the cheater, but no so much to the honest players who owe their success exclusively to their skill. As an unethical gamer behavior, cheating in multiplayer should be punished, which is exactly what Call of Duty did when they banned nearly half a million players, as of April 11, 2021.
According to an article published by Polygon, Call of Duty: Warzone issued another high-volume set of bans, permanently banning over 45,000 fraudulent accounts. This is the seventh high-volume set of bans since February, which only goes to show the determination of unethical gamers, and their sheer number, but also attests to Infinity Ward’s dedication to keeping their virtual playgrounds clean. This ban’s numbers now make up to a total of over 475,000 players the game banned since the mode launched just over a year ago.
Call of Duty: Warzone launched in March 2020 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, amassing over 50 million players in the first month alone. The game quickly received widespread complaints from prominent gamers, streamers, and YouTubers regarding a “problematic” PC population and their dishonest advantage over console players. Infinity Ward wasted no time at all and issued over 70,000 bans within the game’s first 30 days. Some console players simply turned off the cross-platform matchmaking, which only poses a short-term solution to a much larger problem. Especially since the game constantly prompts players to turn cross-platform gaming on.
Multiplayer cheaters are incredibly creative and always searching for a way to gain the upper hand without investing effort and skill. So, sometime after Call of Duty’s release Infinity Ward came up with the idea to give cheaters a taste of their own medicine – matchmaking them with other cheaters. Activision, the game’s publisher, even went a step further and threatened legal action against cheat makers, prompting one of them to close the shop and publicly apologize to the Warzone community.
Infinity Ward didn’t make any comments on their approach and methodology in catching the culprits, which would be counterproductive. From the front part, most of the job is done through “Report A Player” functionality in the Call of Duty: Warzone‘s Spectator Mode, which allows players to watch others’ live-gameplay and report them in case of foul play. From the back-end, Infinity Ward is doing everything in its power to deal with the menacing cheaters.
The studio even implemented hardware bans, which basically prevents repeating, and serial cheaters from ever accessing the game without changing their gaming hardware setup entirely. And it’s improbable that anyone will buy a new gaming rig just to continue his or her cheating efforts in Call of Duty. With that said, some cheaters are exceptionally good and, sadly, never get caught.
Infinity Ward makes repeat and serial offenders their focus at the moment, concentrating their efforts on hardware bans and preventing cheaters in multiplayer from gaining an unfair advantage. According to Infinity Ward, there’s no place for cheating in Call of Duty, and delivering fun, and above everything else, a fair gaming experience to all players is their top priority.
