A Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 player tells his story about an alleged fake ban in the shooter. Frustrated that he can’t talk to anyone about the ban, he heads to the Activision offices in Texas, USA. Although he only gets as far as security, he actually got answers – and triggers a hard-fought debate.
Shortly after the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, there were many reports of incorrect bans in the game. Players complain that they paid a lot of money only to be permanently banned straight away.
Such reports should always be treated with caution. It is very rarely possible to understand what the banned players have done or are hiding.
In the present case, the player made it clear on Reddit: He never cheated, never behaved incorrectly. He just wanted to talk to someone about the ban after already paying $140 for 2 versions of the game (via reddit.com).
To do this, he went to an Activision studio in Austin, Texas/USA and even got answers to his ban story. Now, however, there are discussions as to whether the whole action was okay or a tad too intrusive.
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Player wants information about the ban – discussion about a visit breaks out
When the Reddit user “PlumContent” arrived at the studio, a security employee caught him in the parking lot. He writes that he politely asked the staff member to explain his situation to someone at the studio for possible answers to his questions about the ban.
According to the report, that worked. The security employee went into the studio, talked to an employee who obviously knows better and came back with answers:
There are only a few people there at the moment and it may take a few weeks to clear up the wrong bans.
PlumContent also writes that the security staff advised him not to get so upset about a game and to remain patient. However, the thread creator says it’s very frustrating for him that he can’t even talk to anyone on the phone about it.
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What are the reactions? They are very divided, which is already evident in the first comment discussion in the thread on Reddit. The first comment is: “You are a hero”. Below that, the user writes “RandomJPG6” – “No, it’s not”.
Two worlds meet here – on the one hand the players with their limited possibilities to get direct answers from the developers. On the other side are representatives of the industry who feel threatened by such “visits”.
For example, the founder of the employee organization “ABetterABK” reported on Twitter on the subject, Jessica Gonzales:
Tweet translation: “Don’t launch lone wolf campaigns against customer service agents, they have NOTHING to do with your account ban. If you encourage such behavior then **** yourself.”
Some such statements can be found on the industry side. They say clearly that something like this is not ok and some feel threatened by such “direct requests”.
For example, @theopholus writes, “I used to work in call centers. That would definitely be a reason for me to call the police if someone shows up to confront our staff.
If someone showed up to confront one of our employees, it would absolutely have been grounds for calling law enforcement. […] Don’t bother the people on the frontline – try a supervisor who has authority” (via twitter.com).
A different picture emerges on Reddit. Many comments are players, some banned themselves. There are comments like:
Leave your opinion on the topic and discuss with the community. What do you say about the action? What do you do if the customer service from the Internet provider couldn’t help?
Would you rather read about what’s currently going on in Modern Warfare 2, then have a look here: CoD MW2: Players almost shot themselves to the moon for blatant trick shots – bad, beautiful and unfortunately fixed