A large number of players are mistakenly banned in the popular game ``Call of Duty Modern Warfare II'' equipped with anti-cheat tools

When playing online battle games, you may be matched with cheat players who win using unfair means. The presence of cheat players deprives the game of fairness and discourages legitimate players, so developers and operating companies have also introduced anti-cheat tools into games. Mike Swanson, a former Microsoft engineer, has raised the issue that there are many people who are unable to play games because their accounts have been banned even though they have not acted.

Mike Swanson's Blog • Activision's Faulty Anti-Cheat Software
https://blog.mikeswanson.com/post/702753924034297856/activisions-faulty-anti-cheat-software

Mr. Swanson is criticizing Activion 's popular FPS `` Call of Duty Modern Warfare II (CoD MW2) '' released in 2022. This game is equipped with an anti-cheat system called ' RICOCHET Anti-Cheat ', which works at the kernel level to detect cheat tools. If cheats are detected by RIOCHET, the Battle.net account required to play Activision Blizzard games will be banned, so not only online play but also the game itself, including single play mode, will be prohibited. It will be.

However, there are many players whose accounts have been banned by Ricochet Anti-Cheat even though they are not using cheat tools. Mr. Swanson himself said that he was suddenly banned one day, even though he did not play any online battle games and only played in single play mode.

On the overseas bulletin board site Reddit, when you start the PC version of CoD MW2, an error screen such as 'DEV ERROR 292' or 'DEV ERROR 11642' or a message window saying 'File is damaged' appears and the game crashes. However, there are reports that the following day, when launching Battle.net, the message 'Account Banned' appears.

Even if you file an objection against this false BAN, the fixed sentence by the automatic reply bot will be returned and the problem will not be solved.

Discord, an online communication tool, has created a channel ' COD False Ban Class Action Lawsuit ' where people complaining that they were mistakenly banned in CoD MW2, and the Federal Trade Commission and the consumer group Better Business Bureau I am submitting a report. It seems that Activision Blizzard is aware of this issue, and the support staff said, 'We understand that bans are frustrating and sometimes they are banned by Activision Blizzard for no reason. We have received multiple complaints,' but the issue has not been resolved.

One user submitted a complaint through the Better Business Bureau and Activision Blizzard said, 'We have reviewed your case and have confirmed that your account has been banned. For more information on the ban, please visit Game Integrity. It will not be made public in order to maintain its integrity and safety.Please note that our enforcement team will conduct a thorough investigation before taking any such action against your account, and our opinion will not change.' It seems that the answer has been returned.

Mr. Swanson speculates that Ricochet Anti-Cheat misinterprets the frequent crashes of the game as ``intentional operations by the player'' and mishandles them, and Ricochet Anti-Cheat has some problem. suggests a possibility. He also pointed out the possibility of misdetecting GPU-related software such as MSI Afterburner and NVIDIA GeForce Experience, or programs such as Discord.

Swanson suggested that Activision Blizzard developers remotely connect to their PC to debug the problem, but there was no response. Swanson said, 'If you still think I'm a banned cheater after all this, there's probably nothing I can do to convince you otherwise, and I'm sure you'll be able to do the same.' I sincerely hope that this does not happen to you, and I hope that Activision Blizzard recognizes that the series of false bans is a real problem and will respond and fix it appropriately.' increase.