‘Modern Warfare 2’ players hit with perma-bans due to Activision’s faulty anti-cheat software

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 players are apparently being permanently banned from the game, despite doing nothing wrong.

With the issue apparently caused by Modern Warfare 2’s Ricochet anti-cheat software, several players are now seeking legal advice after purchasing a game they can no longer play.

Detailing the issue on his blog, former Microsoft employee and casual Modern Warfare 2 player Mike Swanson explained how “Activision’s blind faith in the infallibility of their Ricochet anti-cheat software, combined with a buggy and unstable Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 release, has resulted in faulty, permanent, and unappealable player account bans that prevent users from starting even the single-player game.”

Hello Activision, why are you banning randomly players from Warzone ? Will you give at least a reason for the permanent ban ?#CallofDutyModernWarfareII, #Warzone2, #ActivisionBlizzard #Activision pic.twitter.com/hJyAKKfYD6

— De Mo (@squeedeemontee) November 29, 2022

The blog goes on to explain how despite the official Modern Warfare 2 subreddit restricting posts about bans, a dedicated Discord group has been set up with over 500 members who are in the process of filing reports with the Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission about the unfairness of Activision Blizzard’s business practices.

“These bans leave wrongly accused users who paid £70 with no explanation, recourse, or ability to communicate with Activision about their issue,” said Swanson who himself has been banned for using “unauthorised software and manipulation of game data.” He denies using any form of cheat software.

“Conveniently, they can’t tell me what caused the ban, and their decision is final. They helpfully recommend that I ‘avoid any of these types of violations’ to keep my account in good standing. As I don’t know what to avoid and did nothing in the first place, I’ve not installed any other Activision software just to be safe.”

He added: “Activision can permanently ban your account for any reason, never tell you why, provide no recourse, and keep your money. This is absolutely user-hostile (if not fraudulent) behaviour.”

Similar experiences have been shared on the Activision Reddit while several reviews on Steam also mention crashes leading to perma-bans.

Swanson went on to share a message allegedly from Activision Blizzard’s support staff that said they “understand that bans can be frustrating and sometimes can be raised by Activision for no reason,” before they admitted they had received “several complaints about the same matter,” but still, nothing has been done.

As a developer, Swanson then shared some theories about why bugs may be leading to bans.

“The frequent crashes and accompanying errors about corrupted files are being incorrectly flagged by the Ricochet anti-cheat software as intentional manipulations made by players. I can imagine the logic that would need to be implemented to avoid false positives like this, and given the number of game crashes, I suspect they have issues with Richochet that they’re unwilling to review,” said Swanson. “I have offered to allow Activision developers to connect remotely to my PC to debug this issue, but as of this post, I have received no response.”

Earlier this year, Apex Legends players reported a bug surrounding the game’s anti-cheat software that also led to unfair bans.

In other news, Amazon Games are publishing another Tomb Raider reboot game.