• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Just got my console (and I assume my account) banned from Live for playing Halo 4.

As long as he has a 360 that isn't modded and he used the actual retail disc to play the game, it shouldn't fucking matter. MS has no way of knowing how a game disc is acquired when they do the ban, and punishing a paying customer like this is beyond ridiculous. Again, he did not pirate the god damn game.

All they need know is that the copy was acquired early. They have that proof.
 

Jinjo

Member
So playing a legit game before release immediately makes you a suspect to thievery? Fucking please.

My little brother got Halo 4 for his birthday. My parents had it 4 days early, but didn't give it to him till his birthday, which was coincidentally the day of release. I shudder to think what could have been had my parents been so awesome to have given it to him early (they didn't cause he had a test coming up). I don't even know what they did with the receipt (why would I, it's a birthday gift), usually they don't keep those (no store warranty on games anyway, no return policies, therefore I atleast never ever keep my game receipts). I know for sure this story would have never hold up had he played it before release and been banned even though it's the complete truth (down to Halo 4 releasing on his birthday). So then what? Clearly my middle-aged parents with good jobs etc. etc. have resorted to stealing a copy of my brother's favourite game. Please.
 
Were you there when he bought it? Buying it behind the counter prior to street date isn't "legit"...and hell who's to say that new reciept wasn't obtained to cover his ass? This isn't court...burden of proof is on OP.
It's still a legit copy of the game. It's an authentic game disc manufactured and distributed by Microsoft. He didn't download the game through a torrent.
 
Well Stinkles initially said his copy wasn't legit, so maybe he knows something we don't.

In any case a post dated receipt proves nothing as he could have went and bought a new copy, not opened it and returned it for a full refund.

Receipts are important, because it proves you bought something legally to merchants and if you have any issues, they obviously come in handy.


He's using company speak. To them, every copy of the game isn't "legit" until the street date, which is something they should take up with their retailer partners, not paying customers.

And people harping on the receipts seem to be ignoring the banned users who offered to show receipts to MS customer service and still haven't been reinstated.
 

feel

Member
Stinkles' wording leads me to believe they might have found traces of piracy in the history of OP's XBL account.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
He paid $60 to play your video game. You guys responded by banning his console and account. You said "relax. I will take care of it. Your copy is not legitimate - the store efffed up. But you will be unbanned soon." One month later, his account and console are still banned. Sounds pretty cut and dry to me. "His own actions" were buying and playing a video game.

I mean no disrespect, but I do think it is very cut and dry.

1)Is the copy he played an original copy, just like any other retail copy?
2)Does he have a valid LIVE Gold(with time on it) account?
3)Is his console modified in any way?

If this 3 questions are answered in a satisfactory manner, then he should not have been banned in the first placed, and definitely should have been unbanned in a timely manner.

If he stole the copy, or killed someone for it, that falls outside of the realm of the Xbox LIVE realm and if you believe this is the case then you follow the standard procedure for this. If he bought it from a store ,the burden of playing a game before release should not fall unto him but unto the store. Much less, should he be "forced" to oust the store with a receipt in order to be reinstated.

I think the problem is the fact he knew he was buying the game early. Game wouldn't ring up since it wasn't out yet, OP left the money and got the game, and it was paid for the next day. So he is in the wrong, somewhat.

Not that I think that should be banworthy (an infraction at most, only bannable after a few repeat offenses), but it could very well be the problem.

Edit: The heck, why didn't last page take me to the last page.
 
Why should a customer be responsible for knowing the "release date" of something? Just because we do as we are the obsessive niche doesn't mean people should go around as customers knowing release dates and abiding by them. Unless the product you purchase explicitly states "do not use this until X date", why would it be reasonable to assume a paying customer wouldn't use the item as soon as they got their hands on it?
 
So where is the line drawn for a customer to have to prove they are legit? If someone has 4 or 5 years of stacked Live Gold renewals can MS ban them because they might have stolen a bunch of cards from the store? It's awfully suspicious!
 

rac

Banned
I think you should be banned from live until you kinect all your receipts of all your games. However the problem arises how does microsoft know if you also stole the 360 and kinect? How can Microsoft tell if you stole the receipts?
 
Well, I (and all of these people) haven't been able to play Halo 4 since Monday because the game thinks the servers are down.

I think you should be banned from live until you kinect all your receipts of all your games. However the problem arises how does microsoft know if you also stole the 360 and kinect? How can Microsoft tell if you stole the receipts?

As you can see, it's a VERY complicated situation.
 

Kusagari

Member
I really want this "VERY complicated" situation expounded on. Because that sounds far more serious than a guy not having a receipt.
 
So where is the line drawn for a customer to have to prove they are legit? If someone has 4 or 5 years of stacked Live Gold renewals can MS ban them because they might have stolen a bunch of cards from the store? It's awfully suspicious!
I don't have receipts for any of my renewal cards.
 
If you buy something from someone that claims they can't give you a receipt for it yet, an alarm should go off in your head that something is fishy and you should just move along to another store. If that means not being able to yell FIRST!!!! on the Internet, then so be it. Conversely, Microsoft shouldn't be banning anyone ever for playing a retail copy of any game. If you can't control the distribution of your own games, then don't try to fix your own problem later by arbitrarily fucking random customers.

This is more common sense than CommonSense.
 
So where is the line drawn for a customer to have to prove they are legit? If someone has 4 or 5 years of stacked Live Gold renewals can MS ban them because they might have stolen a bunch of cards from the store? It's awfully suspicious!

Huh...just because I've purchased 5 cars doesn't make it okay if I steal the 6th.
 
I think the problem is the fact he knew he was buying the game early. Game wouldn't ring up since it wasn't out yet, OP left the money and got the game, and it was paid for the next day. So he is in the wrong, somewhat.

Not that I think that should be banworthy (an infraction at most, only bannable after a few repeat offenses), but it could very well be the problem.

Edit: The heck, why didn't last page take me to the last page.

How is it at all his fault? His arrangement with the store is between him and the store. If they were cool with selling it to him in tha fashion than that's up to them. If they were breaking an agreement they made with MS that's not his problem.
 

cheststrongwell

my cake, fuck off
I'd like to know how many people unknowingly bought Halo 4 before it released and got banned. OP knew this transaction wasn't legit. I think a console ban is going too far though.
 

MYeager

Member
So where is the line drawn for a customer to have to prove they are legit? If someone has 4 or 5 years of stacked Live Gold renewals can MS ban them because they might have stolen a bunch of cards from the store? It's awfully suspicious!

If they found a way to activate all those cards after stealing them, that's impressive enough to let them keep those stacked years.
 
I'd like to know how many people unknowingly bought Halo 4 before it released and got banned. OP knew this transaction wasn't legit. I think a console ban is going too far though.

And if you're going to ban people for playing a game early, don't hide that little fact away in a TOS that no one reads. Put a sticker on the damned box.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
How is it at all his fault? His arrangement with the store is between him and the store. If they were cool with selling it to him in tha fashion than that's up to them. If they were breaking an agreement they made with MS that's not his problem.

That's why I said it should take multiple infractions to result in a ban. Obviously it's the stores responsibility to not sell games before release day, but a user with repeat offenses at breaking street dates is obviously doing it knowingly.
 

kodt

Banned
Huh...just because I've purchased 5 cars doesn't make it okay if I steal the 6th.

You didn't understand his comment. He is saying is it fair for Microsoft to assume you stole XBL cards if you bought 5 12 month cards and entered them all at once.

If someone has the game early Microsoft should not automatically assume it was stolen or pirated. If a store breaks street date, the store should be punished, not the customer who bought the game.
 

Satchel

Banned
Stinkles' wording leads me to believe they might have found traces of piracy in the history of OP's XBL account.

Yeah me too.

I love the haters in here automatically assuming honesty from the OP about the whole story here.

Like those threads on the Xbox forums with guys with purple skinned avatars asking why they're consoles and accounts were banned.
 
Yeah me too.

I love the haters in here automatically assuming honesty from the OP about the whole story here.

Like those threads on the Xbox forums with guys with purple skinned avatars asking why they're consoles and accounts were banned.

If that's the case, the banning is legit. No question.

Still, we have far too many people defending MS for banning someone simply on the grounds that they bought and played a legit game early. The OP isn't the only one in this thread who had this happen to them either.
 
So let's just say I find a guy on Craig's List selling a game 2 weeks before it's release date.


Am I obligated to quiz this person about exactly how they got the game early? Is it my job to concern myself with his guy's source for his games?

Because that's what people are suggesting in this thread. If you don't have a receipt you're a criminal, or at the very least you're "shady", and we all know that's just code word for small time criminal!
 
Yeah me too.

I love the haters in here automatically assuming honesty from the OP about the whole story here.

Like those threads on the Xbox forums with guys with purple skinned avatars asking why they're consoles and accounts were banned.

I doubt it. If that were the case, Stinkles should just call out OP as a pirate.
 

LegatoB

Member
I'm on vacation, skeilington's case is VERY complicated and his own story didn't help him at all. As I am sure he would admit himself. The work we're doing to fix his case is outside of normal policy. I will send a reminder mail. He is still at the mercy of his own actions however, which again, while unfortunate, are not in any way normal or represntative of a typical case.

Damage control? Wat. Read the whole thread plz. It is by no means cut and dry.
Please disclose what information the OP hasn't provided which would explain the account's banning.
 

Kusagari

Member
Yeah me too.

I love the haters in here automatically assuming honesty from the OP about the whole story here.

Like those threads on the Xbox forums with guys with purple skinned avatars asking why they're consoles and accounts were banned.

If they found traces of piracy I'm pretty sure Stinkles wouldn't even be bothering to still try to to help the guy.
 

Satchel

Banned
If that's the case, the banning is legit. No question.

Still, we have far too many people defending MS for banning someone simply on the grounds that they bought and played a legit game early. The OP isn't the only one in this thread who had this happen to them either.

That's my point.

If the OP is being completely honest here, then something doesn't add up.

You guys all know who Stinkles is right? If he's saying its complicated, then I assume there's something more to this that we're not being told.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Stinkles' wording leads me to believe they might have found traces of piracy in the history of OP's XBL account.

Nah, I'm sure it's just tricky because it was sold early. So 'internally' an issue smoothing things out with MS rather than anything non-legit with the OP.

Wrinkles has always been a fair and straightforward poster, so lets not jump on him just because MS are doing something some of us disagree with
 

MYeager

Member
Please disclose what information the OP hasn't provided which would explain the account's banning.

There's no way that's going to happen. MS or it studios aren't going to release investigative details about an account, except to the person holding the account. You can ask the OP to try and clarify his situation more, but Stinkles doesn't have the authority to share that information with the public.
 

Massa

Member
There's no way that's going to happen. MS or it studios aren't going to release investigative details about an account, except to the person holding the account. You can ask the OP to try and clarify his situation more, but Stinkles doesn't have the authority to share that information with the public.

If one thing is clear here it's that Microsoft has the authority to do whatever the hell they want.
 
There's no way that's going to happen. MS or it studios aren't going to release investigative details about an account, except to the person holding the account. You can ask the OP to try and clarify his situation more, but Stinkles doesn't have the authority to share that information with the public.

MS has no problem publicly explaining why someone was banned, they have an entire forum for it.

http://forums.xbox.com/xbox_forums/xbox_support/f/41.aspx

It's hilarious.
 

Mudkips

Banned
Stinkles' wording leads me to believe they might have found traces of piracy in the history of OP's XBL account.

Stinkles's wording leads me to believe that he's towing the company line and refusing to speak about the matter because the answer from MS is "Tough shit.".
 

cheststrongwell

my cake, fuck off
Yep. The number of people getting banned for messing with their years of active use is crazy. I assume these dumb asses thought they'd get those free 10 year anniversary 360's.

My favorites are people with obviously vulgar or racist tags. "My gamertag is D1ldolicker420 and I was banned for no reason!!!! Pl0x tell me why I banned!!!"
 
FqzJM.jpg



The best. I can't imagine being a father and thinking your innocent kid got banned for no reason, only to find out he was whipping his dick out in Uno. Fucked up.
 
I'm on vacation, skeilington's case is VERY complicated and his own story didn't help him at all. As I am sure he would admit himself. The work we're doing to fix his case is outside of normal policy. I will send a reminder mail. He is still at the mercy of his own actions however, which again, while unfortunate, are not in any way normal or represntative of a typical case.

Damage control? Wat. Read the whole thread plz. It is by no means cut and dry.

It is totally cut and dry, and you are in the wrong here. He bought your fucking game and put money inadvertently in your pocket by doing so.
 

Skel1ingt0n

I can't *believe* these lazy developers keep making file sizes so damn large. Btw, how does technology work?
Just got off my plane. Again, posting in less than ideal conditions; thank goodness for smartphones.

Two quick things...

I've been informed by another poster via PM that I had been given "my options" about my account... But I haven't. Waiting to hear back what that might mean.

And two - While again, you only have my word, but I honest-to-God have never modified any Xbox console I've owned, nor do I have an ounce of "pirate" history on my GamerTag. So that can't be (or sure as heck SHOULDN'T be) the issue.
 
so what happens to the games you bought if your account is suspended or banned? do you lose the ability to play those games? shouldn't they refund you the cost of those games if they ban you for some silly reason like playing a game a few days early? sorry if this a oversimplification of the issue at hand, but I find it strange a company can legally do this with no recourse.
 

pompidu

Member
Just got off my plane. Again, posting in less than ideal conditions; thank goodness for smartphones.

Two quick things...

I've been informed by another poster via PM that I had been given "my options" about my account... But I haven't. Waiting to hear back what that might mean.

And two - While again, you only have my word, but I honest-to-God have never modified any Xbox console I've owned, nor do I have an ounce of "pirate" history on my GamerTag. So that can't be (or sure as heck SHOULDN'T be) the issue.
I believe you. I don't know who stinkles works for but this should have been resolved by now. What a shitty company.
 
Top Bottom