Xbox 360 Cheaters Named and Shamed

Gamerscore's 'corrected'

Posted by Staff
Xbox 360 Cheaters Named and Shamed
Microsoft has struck out against dirty, filthy cheaters who have taken steps to boost their Xbox Live Gamerscores with Gamesave tampering. The caddish rotters are being smacked down and strung up in public! Well, on Xbox Live...

The action has been taken this very day, we are told. SPOnG's going to let Microsoft mascot, Larry 'Major Nelson' Hryb, give you the details:

"The steps today takes the form of the following:

• Resetting the entire Gamerscore for an account to zero
• The account will be unable to regain all previously obtained achievements and Gamerscore, however, the players will have the ability to gain future Achievements by earning them fairly, like the majority of the Xbox LIVE community does.
• The account will be clearly labeled as a cheater for the community to view on xbox.com. In dash, the personal view of the gamercard will be labeled as well."


The action has been taken against gamers who have loaned out their Xbox Live accounts in order to enable others to rank them up. You can see what a cheater's gamercard will look like at the top of this story.

The cheaters can't say they weren't warned. Back in October last year Microsoft gave us a stern talking to of the perils of cheating. Microsoft hasn't penalised cheaters to the full extent of its threat in this instance, however. Major Nelson warned cheating "can also result in you permanently losing your account... Cancelled. As in you can never get it back."

Why hasn't Microsoft gone this far? An FAQ on the subject tells us, "We believe in players reforming themselves, which is why Gamerscore correction only applies to previously earned achievements." Sissy bleeding heart liberals!

Yes, the tree-huggers out there would probably point out that permanently banning gamers from a commercial system would be (a) impossible to achieve (b) likely to lead to litigation.

As far as SPOnG's concerned, Microsoft hasn't gone far enough. Bring back the stocks! Cheaters should be publicly humiliated on Thursday afternoons in a live webcast, with zealous onlookers throwing rotten fruit and unwanted first generation Xboxes at the bastards!

And their families!

Source: Major Nelson
Companies:

Comments

irritant 25 Mar 2008 12:03
1/5
Have I missed something here? What is the point of the gamerscore? Are any prizes awarded to those with higher scores? What do cheaters actually gain?

I did have a 360 back when they were launced, but traded it in for a son. As far as I can remember the gamerscore was pretty pointless. Has that changed since?
deleted 25 Mar 2008 18:20
2/5
irritant wrote:
Have I missed something here? What is the point of the gamerscore? Are any prizes awarded to those with higher scores? What do cheaters actually gain?

I did have a 360 back when they were launched, but traded it in for a son. As far as I can remember the gamer score was pretty pointless. Has that changed since?


I just got a son and kept the 360 for the midnight feedings, although it takes some time learning to hold 1 baby, 1 hot bottle and 1 360 gamepad, that deserves an achievement on its own! Having kids doesn’t result in ending the gaming, it means you can use them to get the next console, "Mrs little sonny said he wants a PS4 for Xmas, he’s a good kid really let’s get him one" <\grin> seriously though...

The gamer score serves as a good way to promote competition between friends and also let others know your ability gaining or losing kudos in the fight,

Sure it doesn’t award you prizes but it can promote you skill and cheaters obviously have low self esteem to want to do this, the fact my halo 3 score is only around 345, is because 1 I can’t do legendary B can’t be arsed to find skulls and F4 I find the online achievements a little stupid to be asking in every loft "does anyone want to do the killtastic achievement!" but ultimately I have fun and find it a little rewarding when I do gain `better luck next time` through skill and not cheating!
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PreciousRoi 26 Mar 2008 08:30
3/5
The gamerscore is, like most things related to videogaming, is ultimately of absolutely no relevance to the wider world. That said, people who bust their asses to get the Achievements without cheating are entitled to a degree of pride in their...erm, achievements. They are also entitled to resent that some people, in the urban vernacular, be frontin', yo. MS has a vested interest in keeping their game straight, and these bustas shoulda had virtual caps busted in their gamerscores ass a while back. People have traded time out of their lives for these, worthless or not, they should be more secure. I sure as hell would resent someone with a 1050 on Mass Effect who'd never played the game...when I finally do get 1000 I will have spent entirely too much time playing what is a mediocre effort from BioWare, but Goddammit I earned those points through hours of wading though conversations and driving that bloody pig of a Mako all over Creation itself, I might be slightly embarrassed by them, but they're MINE! You want them, you better have put the time in as well, or I will come to your house and stab you in the eye with a soldering iron...a cold soldering iron.

I spent an entire night trying to find a "straight" game of Attack and Defend night before last, every game I entered was either boosting, or Achievement farming* (which is also cheating), or both. If I ever get the Killtastic achievement (and I probably never will) it will be because I killed an assload of people who were doing their level best to kill me. But how can one look with anything but askance at someone's Killtastic Achievement without direct knowledge of the event, since cheating to givve it to someone is so commonplace.

If I discover someone who is a cheater of any stripe, description, or excuse, I generally disassociate myself from them, I don't glitch, cheat, farm, or roll with those that do...I am FAR too hypercompetitive not to want to measure myself in a fair contest.

Anyway I give MS 2 Huzzah!s out of 3, penalizing them for tardyness.

HUZZAH!
HUZZAH!

*allowing someone else to get an achievement or being the benficiary of such
SuperSaiyan4 26 Mar 2008 09:01
4/5
Acheivemants are a very nice way of rewarding gamers of accomplishing a target within a game, its like being rewarded for say doing a good deed I am sure the feeling is good right?

Well this works in the same way, say you played the game and decided 'You know what I am going to do the game on hard' In most cases you will be rewarded with higher points it also makes you want to play the game more than once and also online if it has online points available.

Many gamers out there love getting points and boosting their gamerscore its a cool way of showing what the gamer has accomplished within the game and also can prove if a person has done a particular level etc.
tyrion 26 Mar 2008 13:58
5/5
irritant wrote:
What is the point of the gamerscore?

The point of the Gamerscore is to replace olde-worlde high score tables that used to be published in magazines such as ZZap!64.

It's global bragging rights and nothing more.
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