Halo fan banned from Xbox Live until 10,000AD
Halo 3 fan gets hold of test build and later finds himself banned from Xbox Live for 7,992 years.
The fan, who describes himself as an achievement whore and has a GamerScore of over 61,000, goes by the name “Scar”. He told GameSpot that he was given the Halo 3 Epsilon test build by a friend and used a glitch, known as the two-controller exploit, to get the game into his account.
“I downloaded it from Marketplace and played it for maybe six hours or so all alone,” he said.
After this period, it kicked him off Xbox Live every time he tried to play the test build and it wasn’t until the following morning that he found he had been banned.
Apparently, Scar isn’t the only one to have got hold of the game and been banned from Xbox Live – he says he knows of at least 10 others who have downloaded the game and been banned for the same period of time.
He has said that he will not appeal the ban, as other games that got hold of the Halo 3 Epsilon build have called support to appeal against the ban without any luck.
Reps from both Microsoft and Bungie haven’t officially commented on the 7,992-year bans, but sources have reportedly said the bans looked legit.
Do you think this is an unfortunate event or did the rogue gamer get what he deserved? Discuss in the forums.
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44 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyWhat happens if they just register under a different name?
If I were M$ / Bungie Studios, I would be more concerned about how this happened, rather than banning people.
What did he expect to happen? M$ to reward his ingenuity at getting hold of something that he should not have?
god, i won't even remotely excited if i can hack to get Crysis test build. why are those people so desperate?
Gotta admit, 10,000 AD was a nice touch
honestly... every little kid knows you usually hide what you shoudnt have.
10,000 ad! Its like when people goto jail for a number of years that they cant possibly survive. Why not just say "for life"?
What would be more interesting to find out is where they found out about the controller exploit
Because in legal terms, Life means 15 years or there abouts.
Eh, 8K years should go by in a breeze if he's immortal.
LOL, funny stuff right there, had to turn the volume down a bit though.
I can't imagine Microsoft would actually want to permanently banish *paying* customers of their XBox 360 and XBox Live system. If the ban really does stop a person from playing online, and they really liked doing that, then they'll probably sell their console (which'll effectively cost Microsoft a sale of a *new* console). Or is it the console itself that is banned from the service...hmmm. So buying a new one might be the cure?
At least I would. Under strict contract conditions, of course.
having never used live on the 360 i cant be sure, i know they used to ban the orginal xbox console (different cirrcumstance only ever read the theory), and if you read the ToS it will probably have something along the lines (PROBABLY) you must adhere to these rules, failure to do so will result in the locking/banning of your account
Then next minute:
"OMFG! I broke the rules and now I'm getting punished! How UNFAIR!"
And to the person saying "as it's a paid service, will he get a refund". Of course not as he has broken the terms and conditions so they have the right to cut his subscription. Most likely because Bungie are close to Microsoft that he got banned from XBL rather than just Halo 3.
Thousands of brits have used the controller glitch to get the CoD4 early, Infinity ward just banned people from the beta rather than XBL. People did that with the Halo 3 beta also but i don't think Bungie cared about that.
Well, according to the novels it's set around the year 2550, so that's not likely. Pretty funny what they did though.
(The banned kids) Haha, banned? Probably for like two we- 7992 YEARS? WHAT THE HELL? :(
That is why you have to read the fine print in the ULA...Im pretty sure exploiting XBox Live to load a beta release of the most anticipated XBox game ever is covered in there somewhere.
You dont pull a gun in an airport;
You dont smoke weed outside the DEA building;
You dont play unreleased material on the MS sponsored network.
The ban probably tagged the consoles unique internal ID as well as apply to the user account. He will have to get another XBOX and user account at most.
I truly dont feel sorry for the idiot. He was smart enough to download it, and smart enough to use an exploit to run it.
"Hmm.....this really looks and smells illegal, but I think I'll play it on the most monitored paid subscription service on the internet anyway.............What, they banned me?????" -pulls thumb out of ass-
I dont support MS or XBOX in anyway, I just hate stupid people more.
wrong...
you dont have to read it...
every eula for online services says they can revoke your right to use it and that they can refuse any business with you without ever having to give a reason.
The amount of self-righteousness people are displaying over this is rather sickening. Get off your bloody high horses.
He broke the rules, he got punished. What's the problem?
i thought none
on the OT, I'm siding with the guy who hacked it. It didn't cost MS anything, generated some hype for them, and they're being childish by banning him. Just my $.02