Blizzard has permanently sentenced over 5,000 StarCraft II hackers' accounts to the black list today, and stated that they intend to continue to crack down on cheaters. This follows Blizzard's September 14 announcement that they would soon be taking action against hackers and cheaters, and emphasizes their commitment to protecting their millions of valued customers from those who use cheats, exploits or hacks in StarCraft II.

"If a StarCraft II player is found to be cheating or using hacks or modifications in any form, then as outlined in our end user license agreement, that player can be permanently banned from the game. This means that the player will be permanently unable to log in to Battle.net to play StarCraft II with his or her account."

Blizzard regularly purges hackers and cheaters. On April 20 they banned over 320,000 Battle.net gamers who had used exploits in Warcraft III and Diablo II; however, at the time they were lenient with first time offenders, and only placed a 30 day suspension on those accounts. Blizzard continued on to warn users that these bans would begin soon.

"We strongly recommend that you avoid using any hacks, cheats, or exploits. Suspensions and bans of players that have used or start using cheats and hacks will begin in the near future."

The  5,000 plus members Blizzard banned today have no hope of returning to the game without purchasing a new copy.

"We recently took action, including suspensions and bans, on over 5,000 StarCraft II players who were in violation of the Battle.net Terms of Use for cheating and/or using hack programs while playing. In addition to undermining the spirit of fair competition that’s essential to play on Battle.net, cheating and hacking can lead to stability and performance issues with the service. Maintaining a stable, safe, and secure online-gaming experience for legitimate players is a top priority for us, and we'll be continuing to keep watch on Battle.net and take action as needed."

Blizzard does make a valid point about exploits, as they often cause a great deal of lag or strain on their servers. They also disrupt the game balance Blizzard is working so hard to perfect. Needless to say, hacking also creates a rather unfair arena for those who causally play StarCraft II.

Ranters, are you playing StarCraft II? How do you feel about today's bans and suspensions?

Source: Battle.net Blog