Xbox Live taking action on Gamerscore tampering

If you tamper with your Xbox Live Gamerscore, you might lose it and everything in it forever, administrators of Microsoft's online game service want you to know.

In a terse post Tuesday, administrator Major Nelson wrote, "Today we took action on some of the accounts we have identified as the most serious offenders who have violated the Xbox Live Terms of Use by tampering with their Gamerscore and achievements."

Microsoft announced Tuesday it will begin taking specific corrective action against players who cheat on their Gamerscore.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Specifically, Nelson was following up on an October post in which he warned that, "I strongly urge you not to tamper with your Gamerscore and achievements. If you do decide to employ some nefarious techniques to artificially increase your Gamerscore or obtain achievements by manipulating the Xbox software without playing the game, bad things will happen."

Well, it appears that the Xbox Live team has begun to implement whatever bad things they had in mind for those who cheat when it comes to the oh-so-socially-important Gamerscore and achievements that show what players have done on the service.

On Tuesday, Nelson wrote that the team had taken steps against those caught cheating. Among the lashings administered were: resetting Gamerscores to zero; canceling all registered achievements, even if some were fairly earned; and labeling the account "as a cheater for the community to view" on both Xbox.com and in the Xbox Live dashboard.

For those curious exactly what the Xbox Live team is looking for, Nelson helpfully provided an FAQ detailing the specifics.

This reminds me a lot of massively multiplayer online game companies like World of Warcraft publisher Blizzard Entertainment or EverQuest publisher Sony Online Entertainment telling their communities that players will be banned for all kinds of illegitimate activity, including buying or selling gold or weapons on the secondary market or for sharing account access.

The thing is, the Xbox Live team, much as has always been the case with the Blizzards and SOEs of the world, make these kinds of stern statements, but don't provide much in the way of details of how many accounts have been affected, and how many players punished.

Still, reading through several pages of comments on Nelson's Tuesday post, it appears that the Xbox Live community is pretty happy about the news, much as WoW players always say they're happy about corrective action taken to purify the playing field in that game. But one does wonder just how effective the publishers are at catching the cheaters and whether these kinds of moves are little more than Band-Aids.

[elcapitaine]

About Time

first off...his name isn't 'Major Nelson' it's Larry Hyrb. That's just his gamertag.

Second, they're being very careful about this. A lot of the known gamesavers are still in the clear. As far as I can see, gamertags Sufoor and StripClubDJ are the only ones affected as of yet.

Honestly, way to go MS.

[basraw]

huh? what's a game saver?

How does one cheat on xbox 360?

[-fjtorres-]

You guys don't do much console gaming, do you?

Major Nelson (as in "major Anthony Nelson from I dream of Jeannie"; he bears a slight resemblance to Larry Hagman) is the Gamertag for Larry Hryb, who is not an XBOX Live Administrator, but rather a spokesman for MS.
He (definitely male) hosts weekly one minute video clips on the service and runs a sort-of support Blog, where he posts regular podscasts, interviews, and notifications. So he is pretty much a fixture of this generation of console gaming.

Even PS3 fanboys know who Major Nelson is.
(You guys Wii users?)

[umbrae]

Mud on CNET's face...

Definitely should have had someone write the article that was "in the know". Major is the voice on XBOX right now, and the author should have absolutely KNOWN he was a HE. Just makes CNET look bad and uninformed.

As Wii users know Major too. :)

[Morpheus Phreak]

Even you don't have it completely right

Larry is the Director of XBox Live Programming.

He's far more than just a simple spokesman.

He's one of the few people on campus that I have not had the
pleasure of meeting.

I've met Bill, Jim, Steve, Cesar (from the Zune side of things),
Paul Donnely (who heads up a lot of the windows stuff), Julie
Larson-Green (who handled Office 2007 and is now working on
Seven),and a few others, but not Larry, at least not yet.

I have to wrangle an audience somehow.

[perfectblue97]

You guys Wii users?N

Nah, they're probably PC-heads.

[Steve519_]

Not everyone is happy

http://www.platformnation.com/2008/03/25/microoft-just-pwn-your-cheating-a/

[aceattorney]

We're Tracking the Cheaters

Thanks to MS, gaming on Xbox Live is just a little bit more fun. Check out the growing list of Cheaters we've id-ed: http://xboxcheaterwatch.wordpress.com/

[swj719]

How lazy/stupid must this journalist be?

You couldn't even click "about" on Major Nelson's blog to find his name and official job title.

I know you didn't look, because you neither got his title correct, but you were unsure as to his gender.

Know many women named "Larry", do you?

A wonderful example, children, of how not to research an article. A shining sample of what not to do.

Bravo, sir. Bravo.

[Daniel Terdiman]

Fair criticism

This comment, and others like it here and in email I got, was fair, and I regret not looking up Major Nelson's bio before making the post. As you mentioned, it would have been easy to do so.

I've edited the story to remove any uncertainty about Major Nelson's gender. I would like to assure you and anyone else who might have misinterpreted the language I used that I wasn't trying to be disrespectful of Major Nelson. I just neglected to make that extra click. I'll do better next time.

[-fjtorres-]

Who is Major Nelson? Duh...

Here ya go, children, Reuters knows:
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN0265215120080103