It's been a tumultuous couple of days for Grand Theft Auto Online players. Over the course of just two days, a large amount of GTA Online PC gamers have reported having their accounts banned, then unbanned, only to be shut down once again.

Earlier this week, droves of Grand Theft Auto Online PC players began reporting that their legitimate, unmodded  accounts were being banned from Grand Theft Auto Online. A short while later, most of these bans were reversed, so gamers were free to play online again. It's now unclear if those ban reversals were intentional or not, as Rockstar Games has issued new bans for the same player accounts.

Rockstar hasn't commented on the latest wave of bans, so it remains unclear why players are going through this. It's possible that Rockstar is testing out a new system to automatically ban cheaters and it's not yet working as intended. Since the bans are happening now, just before the release of Grand Theft Auto V Premium Edition, it could be that Rockstar may be seeking ways to eliminate cheaters as soon as possible in order to keep players who are just being introduced to the game happy and playing.

Like any other multiplayer game online, Rockstar Games has its hands full keeping the game running with as few cheaters as possible. Unfortunately, this has led to some similar ban problems in the past, ranging from booting players for using offline single-player mods in GTA to overlooking exploits that allowed cheaters back into the game. Unfortunately, players using cheats and hacks still frequently show up in the game, so it's clear that Rockstar still has its work cut out for it.

It remains to be seen if Rockstar Games will reverse the bans once again. Considering that many of the players in question have spent a great deal of money on GTA's in-game microtransactions, it's understandable that this ban is being taken seriously by the playerbase.

Source: Reddit

Grand Theft Auto Online is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.