Microsoft Stands Firm on Xbox Live Bans

[Jak The Great]

In That respect though, modding is a privilege, not a right. There are companies that applaud the mod community (blizzard, Valve) and others that won't stand for it (in this case MS and Activision) neither stance is wrong, but they do make it perfectly clear what is and isn't tolerated. How does a moral high ground belong to the guys who disrespect the rules and laws the developers or manufactures put in place?

This isn't to say that I agree with Activision's decision, but the best way to tell them that you don't like something is to not buy it, and given the sales that MW2 brought in there obviously weren't enough people who cared enough about dedicated servers to not buy the game. I doubt they're going to go back to dedicated servers

The moral highground belongs to them because of the publisher abusing their copyright, teh dedicated servers are just an example of it. While it may not have been sufficent deterrent to stop sales they were much lower on pc than on xbox or ps3. What I mean is here is a bunch of people who want to do something there way, at no measureable cost or harm to anybody, and along comes Activsion, says its our way or no way? Thats not right at all, the best way to tell Activision was not the boycott, thats no soloution for either party pc gamers dont get MW2, Activision loses sales and then maybe next time they dont do it or maybe they dont bother with the pc port? I mean just because the devs and publishers make the rules does not mean they are morally infallible, their rules are geared towards maximising profit, a good goal for a company, but the methods they use as with the MS bans are definatly reprehensible.

I think this is where we are getting lost with each other. Abuse of copyright for the most part is an opinion. Yes there are blatant abuses of copyrights (see 'Edge' articles) but this hardly falls into that category. Just because something is free now does not always mean that it will always be. In this case, IW or activision decided that they didn't want dedicated servers, more than likely because they are going to start charging people in the future. Either way, morality isn't a great arguement in court. The terms on which these products are released are there for precisely that reason

As for boycotting, welcome to Capitalism. If no one buys your product because of a highly controversial feature, you can guarantee that feature will not be included in any subsequent releases.

When it really comes down to it, all of this seems like an entitlement issue, the consumer is not entitled to anything from the publisher, they buy the game or they don't. The publisher is not obligated to keep everything as it was, and make it free for all time, sooner or later everything will have a price.

 

[SilentHunter7]

both of you guys are WRONG. there is a law in the United States called the DMCA, this makes ANY mods illegal, no matter what you want to do with it. if they put in a protect scheme, which m$ has done, doing anything to go around said scheme, which mod chips do, is illegal and in violation of the law.

this is why they go after people who sell the chips that modify consoles. this has been proven in court several times, any modifications that are not purely cosmetic are illegal as they circumvent any protect schemes that m$ has put into place

seriously you should go learn some laws before you go saying what is and what isn't illegal. this law has been around for well over 10 years and this particular part of the law has been tested time and time again and has stood up.

Whoa, claws out, are we? Don't mistake me for an idiot, I know the DMCA, and I know enough of it to know that not all mods violate the anti-circumvention clause. DVD, Blu-Ray, and HDD mods come to mind. Hell, even certain mod-chips, as long as the chip doesn't allow you to play without a CD, wouldn't violate that clause (Granted I know of no chips that DON'T have that feature).

Also, I'd like to also point out that that clause is a joke, is unenforceable at the lowest levels, and is in desperate need of a re-write. Anyone who owns a DVD player that doesn't check region-coding, or plays DVDs with WinAmp, or other third-party media players on their computer is in violation of it. If you buy an e-book, and open it with third-party/open-source software, you're in violation of it. If you use anything other than iTunes to copy music to your iPod, you're in violation of it. Until the last dashboard update, which disabled them completely, if you used any 3rd-Party memory units, you were in violation of it.

 

[Epitome]

I think this is where we are getting lost with each other. Abuse of copyright for the most part is an opinion. Yes there are blatant abuses of copyrights (see 'Edge' articles) but this hardly falls into that category. Just because something is free now does not always mean that it will always be. In this case, IW or activision decided that they didn't want dedicated servers, more than likely because they are going to start charging people in the future. Either way, morality isn't a great arguement in court. The terms on which these products are released are there for precisely that reason

As for boycotting, welcome to Capitalism. If no one buys your product because of a highly controversial feature, you can guarantee that feature will not be included in any subsequent releases.

When it really comes down to it, all of this seems like an entitlement issue, the consumer is not entitled to anything from the publisher, they buy the game or they don't. The publisher is not obligated to keep everything as it was, and make it free for all time, sooner or later everything will have a price.

You say if teh customer doesnt want the product the way it is he shouldnt buy it, I say the customer should be free to buy it and once his cash is parted with its his to improve on however he/shes fit. You seem to act like the consumer has no rights in all this, we should all just accept whats said to us, this is yours, you bought it but dont mess with it or else we can terminate your service and possibly have you locked up? Bs when I part with cash for something its mine, i can make it do what i want and i dont cause any damage to others in process then no company should have the power to shut me down. The dedicated server issue is tricky here as I can see conflict when say dedicated server support did come online but take installing a HDD drive on your 360? Why should MS have the power to ban you from XBL when your mods give you no advantage and are legit?

 

[FBPH]

Its not the fact that you can't go back online on your banned xbox, its what the banning does to, essentially brick it. Once a console is banned, it can never again get any internet connection, it can never install anything to the hard drive ever again, you can never again unlock achievements on that console, it can never again be updated, which is essential because new games come out that require dashboard updates that you could never install anyway, so you can't ever play them, any savedata or profiles saved on any hard drive that are put into a banned console will be corrupted and can not be played on another unbanned console unless it gets deleted, but profiles can just be recovered through Live. So once a harddrive is put in a banned console, unless you want to delete all your savedata and have to hassle trough with recovering your gamertag every time, its stuck to that banned console.

Now, antipiracy measures, fine. But i don't see how breaking the TOS for Live gives Micro$oft the right to do that to someone's console (property) they paid for. modding a console is not illegal because you paid for it and its your property, but the sh*t they did to the console is a bit extreme and warrants something. if anything cutting off connection to Live would have been all that was necessary, especially since pirates that never went online were not affected by the banwave. (they are still sailing free)

 

[Eldarion]

I still say they got what was coming to them.

Yeah but if you steal from thieves you aren't exactly doing good.

Which I think is what the lawsuit has going for it.

Basically Microsoft timed it so that they could get the most money out of faulty morals. Which is what these modders are doing.

Feel free to tell me "NAY! These heathens deservest the fires of a thousand hells! Microsoft are though saints forest they who doth now so unrightly scorn!"

Since I'm sure someone will.

Never equated Microsoft to saints, but they do have the right to ban accounts anytime they want. Its in the terms of use.

 

[Frank_Sinatra_]

*le snip*

Why aren't you a politician?
Oh that's right, because you think in rational terms where everyone can win.
While getting off topic why did the political situation decide we can only have extremes of liberal and conservative? Why can't we have middle ground where everyone wins a little, and everyone looses a little.
That is why I'm a Libertarian, thank you very much.

 

[Smudge91]

I'm just going add my two cents worth on the moral argument against micrsoft. And as moral i mean the whole right or wrong buisness.
I'm going to go back to the TOS aswell argument. When the "I accept" or "ok" button is pressed on the console, this binds the owner of the console into a legal binding agreement with microsoft. The TOS of microsoft is that modding a console with unauthorised parts are against the TOS. By breaking the contract, microsoft have the right to terminate the contract and as the user defaulted on the contract they forfeit their right to a refund. Even if the consoles were modded in such a way that it would improve the users experience, it is still illegal and microsoft reserve to right to terminate the contract. Microsoft is offering a service, the modders did not have to go and buy microsofts products and once reading the TOS and not agreeing with them, then they should have returned the console to the store with in the 28 days return policy rather than modding the xbox. They also cannot claim ignorance to this TOS as it is stated and it is the users fault for not reading it. There is alot of fault on the users side. Whether it is right or wrong for microsoft to not refund money is irrelevant. There are many things which are right or wrong. Its a simple fact, the TOS which is a binding legal agreement was broken, microsoft therefor have the right to retain any money paid to them as either compensation for the breach of contract.
Now the piracy vs modding thing. If the console is modded in such away that the user can play online for free, this is technically stealling. Why? Because you are using a service which other people have had to pay for and it removes potential earnings from the company. If you opened a company and someone stole a product you made, that would be stealing as it removes potential earnings.
and now i'm off to do my reading

 

[stone0042]

Nice to see a company whose got some balls

 

[Ovtri]

I believe the consumers are responsible for what they buy, they should really think about what they are doing when they purchase an item or service. If enough people don't like it and don't buy, the people offering the service will have to change their offer. If it's the only service of it's kind around...well then you don't have much of a choice, and should just tough it out or find some other way to change it.

Just what I think

 

[paragon1]

Seriously, someone explain to me what modding the console is, are we talking about cracking it so it plays pirated games, or just changing housing of the console? If its just changing the housing I see nothing wrong with that, if its cracking the console to play pirated games I hope the ban-hammer hit those suckers hard.

The second one. As I understand it, these bans were supposed to be targeting those with consoles that play pirated games.

snip

While I agree that region locking is a stupid policy, violating a contract to protest it isn't the way to go. If people have a problem with the EULA, then they should refuse to play on XBL until it is changed. Frankly, I don't understand how Microsoft stands to make any sort of profit by using region locking. Playing videogames is a leisure activity, so I think your going to have a VERY hard time finding a judge that would say modding your Xbox is an unwaivable right (and you'd better believe that case would be appealed).
People know the risks involved with modding their consoles. If they didn't, then they should have.
On a side-note: Regarding the actual number of people banned, how is 1 million people NOT mind-boggling? I mean, can you imagine a crowd of people that big? I know I can't.
And please try to remember, Microsoft is a corporation. Their only responsibility is to their shareholders.

 

[Therumancer]

Seriously, someone explain to me what modding the console is, are we talking about cracking it so it plays pirated games, or just changing housing of the console? If its just changing the housing I see nothing wrong with that, if its cracking the console to play pirated games I hope the ban-hammer hit those suckers hard.

The second one. As I understand it, these bans were supposed to be targeting those with consoles that play pirated games.

snip

While I agree that region locking is a stupid policy, violating a contract to protest it isn't the way to go. If people have a problem with the EULA, then they should refuse to play on XBL until it is changed. Frankly, I don't understand how Microsoft stands to make any sort of profit by using region locking. Playing videogames is a leisure activity, so I think your going to have a VERY hard time finding a judge that would say modding your Xbox is an unwaivable right (and you'd better believe that case would be appealed).
People know the risks involved with modding their consoles. If they didn't, then they should have.
On a side-note: Regarding the actual number of people banned, how is 1 million people NOT mind-boggling? I mean, can you imagine a crowd of people that big? I know I can't.
And please try to remember, Microsoft is a corporation. Their only responsibility is to their shareholders.

Well in general working within a system for these kinds of things does not change anything. As you yourself have pointed out, Microsoft is loyal to it's shareholders. In general it's not going to be influanced by things like petitions or fanboy whining. It's much like the goverment in that respect, where if your going to force any real change you have to operate outside of the bureaucracy it created itself specifically to prevent change or avoid being influanced. People tend to forget the more successful protests against the goverment, military industrial complex, and even big business, back in the 1960s and 1970s and the tactics that were actually used (which allegedly put people like John Lennon on goverment watch lists, and created massive lists of domestic terrorists). Of course such tactics have to be even more extreme (relatively) to have an effect nowadays because the same people who did that stuff are now the ones calling those shots and have adapted accordingly.

In general you can't really "boycott" Microsoft, I mean gamers are by their nature a crowd of escapism craving addicts. What's more even if you did they'd be more likely to cut the products entirely than adapt.

Violating unreasonable contracts that were made mandatory is one way of dealing with these kinds of problems, and arguably the first step, as is finding ways to circumvent the problem. Besides which this is of course how you draw attention to such contracts in hopes of having them declared non-binding when they eventually go before review. Much like what happened to most medical waivers apparently.



As far as the numbers go, a million IS a lot of people, but the point I'm making is that I think it might very easily have affected a lot more than that, with the 'million' statement being a middle ground. Microsoft claims it was substantially less, and on the other hand there are people claiming that it was substantially more.

To an extent I think of this as being a more black and white equivilent to Kent State (where to be honest the RL "massacre" was actually in response to being attacked with firebombs according to many things I read long after the fact). The Microsoft Ban, so far being like the Kent State of the electronic rights front.... at least so far.

 

[Kiutu]

Good for Microsoft. People who break the Terms that they agreed to need to be punished. XBL is no different than an internet forum like The Escapist. You break the rules, you get your ass beat.

Banning somebody withour refunding the money they paid is wrong though. sure they have the right to go your no longer a memebr, but they have to refund membership fees. Remember modding an xbox is not illegal, using the mods to do illegal things is. A terms of service contract does not give M$ the right to steal.

If they wanted to keep their money so bad they should have not modded it in the first place.

Except they might have NEEDED to mod the console just to get it to work properly. Yeah, modding a console is terrible, but a company shipping a broken system is A-OK.

Never heard of that. And if its broke, send it back. Microsoft is actually really good about fixing 360's.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

Good for Microsoft. People who break the Terms that they agreed to need to be punished. XBL is no different than an internet forum like The Escapist. You break the rules, you get your ass beat.

Banning somebody withour refunding the money they paid is wrong though. sure they have the right to go your no longer a memebr, but they have to refund membership fees. Remember modding an xbox is not illegal, using the mods to do illegal things is. A terms of service contract does not give M$ the right to steal.

If they wanted to keep their money so bad they should have not modded it in the first place.

Except they might have NEEDED to mod the console just to get it to work properly. Yeah, modding a console is terrible, but a company shipping a broken system is A-OK.

Never heard of that. And if its broke, send it back. Microsoft is actually really good about fixing 360's.

Except when they refuse to repair it.

And a lot of 360s ship with cooling systems that are crap, thereby causing RROD. A person might want to affect an easy repair to the system so as to reduce the chance of RROD, but then that's "modding" and MS will ban you.

Also, there's the matter of importers and them being banned. Which is just stupid, especially when the game isn't going to come out in their country.

 

[squid5580]

Good job on the Uber Ban Massacre Microsoft, no really I mean good job on that.

But seriosly, a DAY, a MOTHER FUCKING DAY after MW2's realese, that is NOT a coincidence, we all know it.

Although i do kinda think Microsft is shooting themselves in the foot with this one, a million users now can't play online, where are they going to go. Well I bet most of them will swap to the PS3, the others will just forget about the Xbox and go back to only using the computer, of course thats pretty much all run by microsoft. Okay then, MS is 50% shooting themselves in the foot.

That is only one side though. How many honest customers (and lets face it MS isn't losing much by banning a bunch of pirates) hearing this are going to go with the 360. Them having such policies in place to seek and destroy hackers and cheaters is a selling point. It lets them know hey we are doing are best to catch and punish these guys so thier actions don't effect you. Whether it be in game or by costing them $$$$ so the quality begins to suffer.

 

[B4D 9R4MM3R]

I do not understand the problem.

If they have broken the terms of service, Microsoft may do whatever they have stated to forcibly end the contract: In the case of modifying the console, excluding it from the service.

It is in compliance with the law.

Laws cannot be swayed with morality; that is their entire purpose. By all means, if you do not like the laws you may try have them changed, but until then you must follow them.

EDIT: I thought I'd learn how to spell.

 

[Low Key]

The timing was perfect if you ask me. The modders knew exactly what they were doing was wrong when they did it. They don't deserve the satisfaction of playing online with a bunch of people who actually went out and spent their money on the game. Just because it happened after two massive releases doesn't change that.

You won't catch me shedding a tear because some pirate asshole has to go out and purchase another console and Live subscription.

 

[AlexTheBucket2112]

Good for Microsoft. People who break the Terms that they agreed to need to be punished. XBL is no different than an internet forum like The Escapist. You break the rules, you get your ass beat.

Banning somebody withour refunding the money they paid is wrong though. sure they have the right to go your no longer a memebr, but they have to refund membership fees. Remember modding an xbox is not illegal, using the mods to do illegal things is. A terms of service contract does not give M$ the right to steal.

Sure it does. They broke the rules. If you pay for a pool membership and break the rules and get b& they don't refund you either.