Online cheaters, will you never change your evil ways?

Blizzard announced deploying the BanHammer (or BanLaser, as Blizzard calls it) on an undisclosed amount of Battle.net users for StarCraft II infractions. Blizzard’s announcement reminds those who cheat and hack that it’s not only dishonest but can cause stability problems for the entire network. The StarCraft end user license agreement allows Blizzard to permanently ban anyone caught cheating.

Sony released PS3 firmware version 3.56 a couple days ago. This update added a security patch that was impressively hacked within hours of release. While Sony works to sort that out, it can at least be proud of one victory. The update also stealthily attacked gamers who were hacking Call of Duty: Black Ops. Many guilty parties have found their consoles to be banned from accessing the Black Ops servers.

Earlier this month, Blizzard went pulled out the banhammer in full force. Over 5,000 StarCraft II players were banned after they were discovered to be using hacks and modifications. Blizzard is very serious about keeping StarCraft II as fair as possible. We don’t understand why cheaters think Blizzard can’t track their every move when they’re connected to Blizzard’s servers. However Blizzard is not banning everyone for not playing fair. Some players are only getting suspensions.

Steam ran into a pretty big problem over the past two weeks. The service had been erroneously banning gamers after they were thought to be cheating in Modern Warfare 2. Steam banned around 12,000 Steam accounts from accessing MW2 much to the surprise of everyone. This meant either there were a ridiculous amount of cheaters on Steam, or something had gone terribly wrong.

The Tetris Company slapped Google with a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice, ordering the company to remove any Tetris-like games from the Android Market. This includes not just any game using Tetris assets that are clearly ripped off, but also any game that vaguely resembles the original Tetris. Simply put, if you’ve seen any game on the Android Market with different shaped blocks falling from the sky, it’s in danger of being removed.

The forecast for gamers in the United Arab Emirates calls for a zero percent chance of Heavy Rain. Sony’s anticipated true crime blockbuster that puts players on the trail of the “Origami Killer” is banned in the UAE (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Quwain, Ras al-Khaimah and Fujairah) due to its mature content.

This is the second title in 2010 to receive such treatment, as THQ’s apocalyptic adventure Darksiders was banned as well. In that game, War, one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, investigates a conspiracy that prematurely brought on Armageddon.

Australia’s Office of Film Literature Classification (OFLC) unit is making headlines again, denying another game from being released in that nation in its current form.

The Refused Classification (RC) ruling on Vogster Entertainment’s MMO Crimecraft came down November 26, 2009, placing it in the same banned-this-year category as Necrovision, Sexy Poker, Risen and, most notably, Left 4 Dead 2.

Left 4 Dead 2 was subsequently released in an extremely edited version that took much of the violence out of the game. Critical and fan reception for the neutered version has not been kind. Crimecraft received a “Mature” rating from US-based Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB).

Grand Theft Auto IV was recently removed from store shelves in Thailand by the order of New Era Interactive, one of Asia’s largest game distributors. The reason is that Polwat Chino, a 19-year-old boy, killed a taxi driver while trying to recreate a scene from the game.

Ah. Yet another case of “life imitating art.” Remember the problem though. Before games, movies and any violent media, there was still violence. So, in comes the obvious step of scapegoating. The easiest thing the blame is something that really can’t defend itself. It’s the basic psychology of blame. Since the Columbine school shooting, the popular thing to blame for violence has been videogames.

We are in an age where one of crime’s biggest motives and accusations is…

There’s a different type of console available exclusively for men in Belgium that is essentially a screen mounted over urinals and features a racing game. One word comes to mind on this matter – Ewww! Grossness! (Editor’s Note: That is one noise and one word.) The game in question is called The Piss-Screen. Seriously that’s more »

Microsoft doesn’t like thieves. When Xbox Live user “Scar” came into possession of Halo 3 through less-than-legal means, MS served him with the gamer equivalent of 114 life sentences – He’s banned from Xbox Live until December 31, 9999. Gamespot had the details of this young man’s tale of woe: “A friend said he got more »