Cheaters branded on Xbox Live, Gamerscores reset
by Christopher Grant 
{ Mar 25th 2008 at 9:56AM }
Well, now there's a far simpler way: Microsoft will label them "cheater." The Xbox Live Sheriff has begun targeting players who "gain achievements through avoiding game play and the use of external tools" and, as a punishment, resetting their gamerscores to zero, making them "unable to regain all previously earned achievements," and lastly (though, most deliciously), permanently labeling them "as a 'cheater' for the community to view." And, since the "gamerscore correction will remain permanent without any way to appeal" there's a good chance we'll have yet another easy way of identifying cheaters on Xbox Live: the tinny static of their whimpering sobs.
PS - Anyone know of any real accounts flagged "cheater" (besides CheaterMcCheat)? If so, point 'em out in the comments so we can all point and laugh.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
JNYCE @ Mar 25th 2008 10:02AM
i have only seen banned peopple so far cant wait to see a cheater and laff at them
Ben Larson @ Mar 25th 2008 10:04AM
stripclubdj, supposedly he had the highest gamerscore
http://live.xbox.com/member/stripclubdj
baby sea tuna @ Mar 25th 2008 10:10AM
Ahahahahaha, PWNT!
Jeff Smith @ Mar 25th 2008 10:22AM
LMAO ! Yeah , he was always up in the top tier of gamer scores.
It's time to say gooddbye to all those BS 1000/1000 Rumble Rose scores !
phil harmonica @ Mar 25th 2008 10:30AM
haha i had a look at his gamer card and was compelled (and i don't know why i did it) to send him a message of ridicule how sad am i.
Oh and Joystiq please remove or turn off that f*cking annoying frontlines fuel of war ad, i'm all for revenue making but i can't view a page on this site without that fucking ad activating even when i don't go near it, i didn't wanna use ad block (because i wanna support your site) but i'm will be using it until its disabled or turned into a static ad. Thanks rant over :)
Eric @ Mar 25th 2008 10:42AM
haha Hilarious! What WAS his/her score?
Christopher Grant @ Mar 25th 2008 10:41AM
phil harmonica: we're trying! We've reported it plenty of times now. Not sure what the hold-up is.
Mutant @ Mar 25th 2008 11:02AM
He had 1000/1000 for Rumble Roses? That proves he was either a cheat or a looser with too much time on his hands. Either way Ha Ha.
merf1350 @ Mar 25th 2008 11:08AM
Per 360voice.com, stripclubdj now has 0 gamerscore. His highest gain in one day was 38,455, his greatest number of achievements in one day was 157, and on 3-24, his gamerscore was a whopping 248,955. God that's beautiful.
Jonah Falcon @ Mar 25th 2008 11:18AM
If you look at stripclubdj on 360voice - who was featured here on Joystiq when he broke the 100,000 mark - all he plays is the Football Manager stuff.
why not the LS2/LS7? @ Mar 25th 2008 11:53AM
Doesn't matter, his account was deactivated a while back.
Farseer (GDI) @ Mar 25th 2008 1:29PM
To cheat like that, that guy must have the morals of a strip club DJ or something... wait a sec..
CB @ Mar 25th 2008 2:25PM
Hilarious!
Desert Eagle @ Mar 25th 2008 2:33PM
I'm betting 1500 Gamerscore that StripClubDj is going to commit suicide over this. For now...
HA-HA! [/nelson]
Tiptup300 @ Mar 25th 2008 3:12PM
EVERYONE POINT AND LAUGH!
Jomolungma @ Mar 25th 2008 3:46PM
But why is his reputation still at 5 stars? I mean, if he's a cheater, shouldn't that go down to zero stars? Also, I don't see how they relabled his gamertag. It just says he's a cheater. Is there a way to easily identify him as a cheater if, say, you encounter him in a COD4 lobby or something? I think it should appear all the time, like a permanent mark in your gamertag or something.
Joe P @ Mar 25th 2008 4:31PM
A scarlet X perhaps?
J.Goodwin @ Mar 25th 2008 6:23PM
You get more or less stars based on how people prefer or avoid you using the blade when they play with you online.
If he never actually plays online, then his star score won't change.
baby sea tuna @ Mar 25th 2008 10:03AM
That fucking rules.
Karen @ Mar 25th 2008 10:06AM
Good for Microsoft, Im glad to see they followed through with their threat. I saw the stripclubdj one what are the other profiles that has been reset to 0?
deaftly (Brawl - 1075-0467-4222) @ Mar 25th 2008 10:07AM
Awesome. Just Awesome.
carg0 @ Mar 25th 2008 10:09AM
that's pretty awesome. to be honest, i didn't think MS had the balls to sanction cheaters so deservingly.
SoulBlade @ Mar 25th 2008 10:11AM
I don't use the service, but damn... that is awesome. Now they need to start labeling the prepubescents somehow.
Poisoned Al @ Mar 25th 2008 11:41AM
Hell yeah, I'd be all for a "douchebag" label. That would save a lot of time and frustration.
Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Mar 25th 2008 11:48AM
Thats what 0 stars are for.
DP @ Mar 25th 2008 12:47PM
If there were only a way...
Alex @ Apr 1st 2008 12:11PM
In the 'Bad Player Review' section there sould be a 'too young to play' option to go with the disruptive voice.
God, it's really horrible when somebody has an annoying voice, glitches all the time, doesn't play the game properly and sings down the mic. I can only complain about one thing!
Zeke @ Mar 25th 2008 10:15AM
Start labeling the racist 12 year olds. I'd love to laugh at that.
Brent @ Mar 25th 2008 10:43AM
I agree, I can't even play with my headset any more. I really hate listening to all of the crap that comes out of these kids' mouths. I pretty much always just do a private chat with one of my friends.
DWells55 @ Mar 25th 2008 11:45AM
Agreed. It's cool that they're stopping cheaters, but I think this is the wrong thing to focus on. As lame and utterly pointless as GamerScore boosting is, it's also completely harmless in that it doesn't affect anyone other than eating up the time of the losers who do it.
It just bugs me that they put the time into this when there's bigger problems. Take the account stealing phenomenon. It's very real and if you're a Halo player, good, or at all "known," it's a constant threat. The same people who do this are also well known to be booting players out of games in order to win. They even do this without being the host of the game and it's believed they do it through launching DDoS attacks to users on the Xbox Live ports.
I can personally attest to this. A few nights ago, I and two teammates were playing Halo 2. My teammate was host, and the other team had a member of the hacker/cheater/script kiddie/idiot clan "o Infamous o" known for this and account stealing. Within 30 kills of the game starting, my teammate was hit by a DDoS attack. Host switched to me and the game restarted. My other teammate was then taken out. Then, at 49 of the 50 kills, I was taken out on my own host.
My first teammate immediately knew what was going on and unplugged his modem and got a new IP - enough to keep him from getting further attacked, but he was out of the game. My other teammate had no idea what was going on and I assume he lost his entire home internet connection as he signed off of AIM at the same time. My internet hiccuped (the modem was unhappy) and my router showed over 800 incoming IP connections, all on Xbox Live-used ports (80 and 3074). Luckily it did a good enough job to keep me online.
Anyways, my point is that these people are out there and using Xbox Live to commit criminal offenses capable of severely harming an ISPs network. They make their GamerTags well known and do it for the "fame." They run a mySpace, brag about what they do, and have pictures of their accounts together. And Microsoft has done NOTHING. These people openly admit to account stealing (identity theft) and DDoS attacks (criminal offense) and give their GamerTags. Microsoft should be:
1. Banning their entire consoles from Xbox Live.
2. Banning their GamerTags.
3. Record their IP addresses used to sign into and play on Xbox Live and report them to their ISP's abuse line.
4. Report them to the FBI or other authorities.
There's no excuse for Microsoft allowing this to continue.
Co @ Mar 25th 2008 1:47PM
Well said, DWells55.
And people wonder why Nintendo's WiFi Connection doesn't go the Xbox Live route?
Delgado @ Mar 25th 2008 8:24PM
Yo Chris Grant, any way we can get an article on this or something, to bring attention to it?
After all, if news sites and blogs are good for something, it is definitely getting things noticed. Publicize this and it will change.
Nigeria: Cody ChesnuTT Defense Force @ Mar 25th 2008 10:16AM
Serves you right Cheater McCheat, I hope your e-penis suffers from erectile dysfunction...
...anyway, I really don't get the fascination about gamerpoints. I used to go to Gamespot and Gerstmann used to love talking about the points. Waxing lyrically about his virtual scorecard. It just seemed a little sad, and redundant.
The marketers at Microsoft did a really good job calling them "Achievements". It makes it seem you actually accomplished something of use.
SugarDaddy @ Mar 25th 2008 10:39AM
Word. Certain achievements are cool. It's nice to be able to prove that you did something cool. Other achievements are just standard "I beat the level" type stuff. Cheating at achievements is quite possibly the lamest thing I can think of. I'm glad MS did this so you can tell who the real losers are -- probably the same ones picking on little kids and letting the racial epithets fly.
Markez @ Mar 25th 2008 10:40AM
Agreed. I don't get the fascination with achievment points at all. Especially to the level of where people will rent games to rack up easy points. It's not really indicative of gaming prowess or anything. Guess it's just sort of a virtual dong for some people.
On a side note, the Headphone Masterpiece was stolen from my car long ago. Now I just have scattered incomplete remnants of the album on my PC.
I'm nothing at all without my mojo :(
Curtis the Claw: Brawl Code 1075-0441-3284 @ Mar 25th 2008 10:41AM
Some people like them because they extend a games life. Personally I don't care for them, I just play through the game and if I get them, great, but I'm not going to go out of my way for some useless achievements...What they need is an achievement store!
Nigeria: Cody ChesnuTT Defense Force @ Mar 25th 2008 10:47AM
Markez,
The Headphone Masterpiece is a beautiful album, man.
samfish (Brawl: 2793 0291 2277) @ Mar 25th 2008 10:17AM
I'll bet they all blame the gays, Jews and African-Americans, among others, for their cheating.
Philpott @ Mar 25th 2008 1:31PM
you're a fucking idiot
Vegnagun bwf @ Mar 25th 2008 1:50PM
The ironing is hilarious.
Abuzar @ Mar 26th 2008 1:08AM
The ironing? lol
Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Mar 25th 2008 10:17AM
Awwww.... someone got their dickhat chopped...
abyssal @ Mar 25th 2008 10:18AM
Ive been labeled a cheater now but i dont care because a very high gamescore just makes you look like total no life loser, with no job, no girlfriend, no ambition to do nothing in life but to play games everyday allday for months and even years for some people like those who sit on their crusty asses playing world of warcraft 18 hours a day
copa @ Mar 25th 2008 10:20AM
"a very high gamerscore just makes you look like total no life loser"
True. But so does your cheater label.
Trev @ Mar 25th 2008 10:27AM
You'd think the "cheater" thing would be worse, Copa. Not only does it show that someone cared about their e-dick enough to want a high gamerscore, but it also says they lacked the requisite ability to get those points legitimately.
Shmil (Brawl Code 2621-2310-1994) @ Mar 25th 2008 10:36AM
but now you're a cheater and everyone sees you're a douchebag and no one wants to play with you
NATO_Duke @ Mar 25th 2008 10:44AM
..if high gamerscore is so bad I have to wonder why you cheated to get it to start with. Lies on lies. Whenever cheaters get nailed they act like they're better than everyone else. You aren't. Your lame.
Anyway, love that they are doing this. Yet we all should have realized that something was wrong with CheaterMcCheat. He was a nice guy and all, but something was always bothering me about him. Who would have guessed this would be it!
Benny @ Mar 25th 2008 10:50AM
"a very high gamescore just makes you look like total no life loser, with no job, no girlfriend, no ambition to do nothing in life but to play games everyday allday for months and even years for some people like those who sit on their crusty asses playing world of warcraft 18 hours a day"
And you aspired to be this? And bothered CHEATING to make it seem like you were? Bahaha.
Roto13 @ Mar 25th 2008 12:37PM
Yeah, you know, you're right, you really DO look like a loser, abysmal. Even more so, now that you're whining about being caught cheating. Awesome.
Poisoned Al @ Mar 25th 2008 2:28PM
I can see you this morning when your 360 fired up:
"Oh no! Someone cut off my e-penis! That just leaves more one inch regular penis! *sob!* Better make a tough sounding post on a gaming blog telling everyone they are lame to try to make my shriveled balls feel big!"