-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
My friend just got his 360 banned, presumably for downloading Rayman Legends.
- Thread starter MR BLACKMAGIK
- Start date
toythatkills
Member
Explain to me how any OS which provides an internet browser with no "forward" button is a good idea? And worse, the "back" button for the browser is the same button you use to close the browser! WHAT. It's a total mess of insane design choices like that.
WP8 has potential but it is an utter disaster right now. Maybe WP11.
Sure, but I can see a lot of people doing this thinking the games were actually free.
And is that not the fault of the store owner for not only opening the door early, but putting his stock on the shelf and price labelling it free
Is Buy One get One Free promotions stealing as well?
Because there's more to an OS than a browser? If you want, I'll create a list of nitpicks about every other mobile OS.
Spoiler, I'm not actually going to do that.
sakipon
Member
360 is only region locked in some cases. Mostly it affects Japanese games.
Though if MS wants to enforce regional limits, they really should do the same as Nintendo. With a European Nintendo system you simply cannot visit the American or Japanese stores and vice versa. That would make sure the use of these kind of exploits would slow down.
hooijdonk17
Member
The store owner is at fault for leaving the door open (you could sign up for an Oman profile), and if anything inside was actually out in the open for the taking (no product was listed for sale in the marketplace), he wouldn't have a word to say..
Yet, in this case, the merchandise was inside a combination safe, obviously hidden from sight and not meant to be taken (they were uploaded to the system, but not listed for sale - possibly for internal testing purposes).. Yet someone not only walked into a store he knew was closed (signing on with an oman profile, a region that is not yet open, obviously not a goodwill act) and played around with the safe until he managed to get it open through trial and error (this is blatant theft - he searched until he found a glitch to make games that are normally not listed to become available), then posted the combination on the store's front window (posting the glitch on forums).
Now everone is walking in, opening the safe and walking out with merchandise.
If I were a cop I'd lock all these guys up.
MS comes across as an ass in this debacle, but that doesn't make them wrong.
toythatkills
Member
It's not really a nitpick, it's a basic functionality that simply does not function, and it might be in the browser but it's as a result of the OS itself (the "back" button requirement on handsets.) If you want complaints about the browser, how about that it's about as good as Internet Explorer 2, and can't display about 40% of the webpages I try to throw at it. If you want a nitpick, why do I have to download a third party app just to display my battery percentage, another massively basic piece of functionality that WP8 just removes because it looks bad, and what looks good is more important than what works. Or that you can't close the app you were using two apps ago unless you close the last app you were using as well. Or that the auto-correct doesn't work at all. Or that the list view is totally shit. Or that a hundred other things.
It looks nice as long as you stick to only official apps (because anything with an icon in a different style uglies it up all over the place) but hey, that's not a problem because WP8 barely has any apps, and the ones it has are rubbish. I mean, Twitter can't even be bothered to make their app work properly.
As I said, potential, sure, it could be a very nice OS, but it's a total mess right now and it's bizarre that you'd claim otherwise.
No, it is not the fault of the store owner someone entered when they weren't supposed to. In real life, for an actual theft, there would be a conviction for breaking and entering. If I understand the technical explanation from earlier correctly, it is more like the items showing up for free at the register because they aren't labeled.
Anything he did that only got the account banned, like deleting it beforehand or something?
The 360 itself isn't region locked. The region coding of retail games is left entirely in the control of a game's publisher (or in the case of MS 1st party games, the dev studio). Some games in some regions are region free, some are multi-region compatible (for example, NA+EU but not Asia), and some are fully locked. Games released on GoD have the same region coding as the retail release they were based on (if EU retail release of a game is region free, so will the GoD version released on all EU XBL marketplaces). Additionally, there are some GoD games that are IP-locked regardless of game region coding, but not all of them are, and it varies by XBL marketplace region (this can be defeated with a proxy).
XBLA and XBLIG releases are not locked in any way, regardless of which XBL marketplaces they are released on.
Son of Cervantes
Member
As far as I know, he didn't play any of the games on his main account. He deleted everything.
Barsoomian
Member
You forgot a couple of parts to the analogy. The customer asked the store owner if the price was correct. The store owner said yes. The store owner then personally delivered the item to the customers house. That still sounds like theft?
MS could have:
1. Made the meaning of region select more explicit, e.g. "Where do you live?", instead of simply what region do you want?
2. Disallowed all marketplace searching in regions with no marketplace.
3. Disallowed all marketplace purchases in regions with no marketplace.
4. Disallowed all marketplace downloads from regions with no marketplace.
It can't be that difficult to put basic firewalls like that in place.
Neuromancer
Member
Does anyone have even a rough number of how many consoles have been banned for this? Are we talking hundreds? Thousands?
I have a friend who said he took part in the great Oman heist but he's still up and running. I wonder if he's home free or if it'll catch up to him.
I have a friend who said he took part in the great Oman heist but he's still up and running. I wonder if he's home free or if it'll catch up to him.
Barsoomian
Member
You can check the official forums. Thing is, they vet all the posts before they end up visible to the public so there may be more. And some won't have complained, or may have called and got nowhere. Could be a few hundred banned? The majority who did it appear to have been left unharmed.
#15 for account bans and #16 for console bans.
http://forums.xbox.com/xbox_forums/xbox_support/default.aspx
There was also this Gamefaqs poll. About 17% of people who did it had a ban, most of which included a main account ban.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/927749-xbox-360/67370077
Although for that we're still only talking about 40 people actually affected
I think overall (given that there will be people who have posted their banning to multiple places) we are talking about somewhere under 100 people who were banned in some way for what 'seems' to be related to this.
I'm pretty sure the number of people who grabbed the free games is going to be in the thousands (it was fairly prominent in many places) , however we have no way of knowing if Microsoft will return to the banning for this at some point in the future.
The last banning which went through for this seem to have been on the 28th of November so we're only 11 days on
GlamFM
Banned
Can´t stop laughing at this - so MS should treat us like kids because they can´t expect us to behave? Ridiculous.
Point 1 is entirely made up btw.
Generally speaking I really dislike how everybody tries to downplay what they did by calling it a "glitch".
Calling it hack seems way more appropriate to me.
And it absolutely is theft no matter how you guys try to spin it.
FonkyByNature
Member
Not to derail the thread but i agree, Windows Phone is beyond shit !
MS wants to be a competitor in the mobile market but with WP OS and the lack of apps and functionality, they just can't and never will. It's actually a joke how they go at it lol.
Barsoomian
Member
Somehow, putting in the most basic checks to prevent security mistakes is treating people like kids. This being the often used marketing line for internet security firms everywhere, "Protect your data with our services. We'll help you treat people like kids."
That's as ludicrous as this:
Because sure, using MS' own services with no modifications whatsoever equates to hacking.
0/10 for your trolling effort. Try harder next time.
To be fair, I think disabling these functions if there is no marketplace in that region would be a good idea. It would prevent people throwing out the claim of "I thought this was just like when you download something from the US store", when there very obviously is no store.
GlamFM
Banned
Careful junior.
I stand by my statement.
If I go to the marketplace to buy a game as I usually do and the game is free for no reason I think it's ok to call it a glitch.
If I have to set up a fake accound for a region that I don't live in in order to get to a marketplace that does not exist to obtain a game that isn't listed with the help of a trick I call it a hack.
Barsoomian
Member
It doesn't ask where you live. That was my first point a few posts above, which you dismissed as irrelevant.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Where was the unauthorized entry? MS approved it every step of the way (again, see my post above). Where were the system modifications?
It's not hacking. If it was, everyone creating accounts in Japan to download demos would be "hackers". They're not.
Hmmmm.
And I'm sure there were a few cases where people deleted the games and account without touching them and still got banned as well. This nonsense is so random.
It was already clear long before that you don't know what you're talking about, but of all the things to call this, a hack is at the bottom of the list. There were no illegal methods used to get the games. It was just creating a foreign account and using Bing Search. Come on now. I thought we were past terrible analogies and examples by now.
By your words, everyone that lives in Germany, Australia or Japan for example that created an account to get content that wasn't in their country are "hackers". People that used an American account to subscribe to Netflix on their 360s are also "hackers" too then.
cyberheater
PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
So what's the state of play on this at the moment. Has MS issued a statement. Have any folks who've been banned been unbanned?
Is it really so hard to read all the way to the end of a post you are quoting?
Astounding that people are still making the argument using the Oman non-marketplace is the same as using the Japanese real marketplace.
Nope. Still not a hack.
MS will never release a statement about why specifically these people were banned. Pretty standard non-response. They'll also never tell you how many people got banned. Based on the limited response they did give, the bans did occur due to the creation of accounts in parts of the world the user clearly doesn't reside in for the sole purpose of downloading software they wouldnt normally have access to for free. In other words, banning people for taking advantage of their own negligence.
HolyBaikal
Banned
... I'm not well educated on how online content with XBOX and XBLA works.
But I would hope there's not any Cave shooters I could get banned for trying to buy online Cave content?
That's about the only content only XBOX's online services I would care about. Or that might possibly be region locked.
But I would hope there's not any Cave shooters I could get banned for trying to buy online Cave content?
That's about the only content only XBOX's online services I would care about. Or that might possibly be region locked.
The bullshit analogies of some posters on here are just baffling.
And since when is someone a hacker when he/she buys goods from another country?
Zoe
Member
Nobody was buying a damn thing from another country.
Zoe
Member
Oman doesn't have a marketplace. It is not possible to legally purchase any 360 content from Oman. The product page was only available by exploit.
That's like having an apple with a "free" tag in some hidden corner in the city, where usually nobody comes along (haha, back to funny analogies, you see). It's not an exploit, it's a glitch on Microsoft's side. Nothing anyone should be banned for. Nothing for which they should hinder users from downloading their games. A more reasonable solution would have been to simply remove the title.
Barsoomian
Member
poopninjamvc3mk
I sucked six dicks to get this tag.
Wow this topic is still going...
Zoe
Member
Laws tend to regulate commerce...
People broke TOS agreement and got their consoles banned junior.
Barsoomian
Member
Oh, so MS writes a TOS, updates it whenever they want, and that makes it a law? Federal or State? EU too? It's just automatically a law in every country, every time MS writes something on paper? Wow at the power they have. That's amazing. Who knew?
GlamFM
Banned
They have all the power they want when it comes to protecting their network. They decided to keep thieves out - go figure!
Funnily, these ToS agreements are not legally binding and can even go against national law. For example, this is against EU law:
"resell or redistribute any part of the Services or access to the Services, including the sale or purchase of an account and/or Microsoft Points;"
How about these?
1. If you purchased something from the official store, which you did if you completed a transaction process, then it's not illegitimately obtained.
2. One may argue this is the case for Microsoft, but so it would be if you did not purchase a game or if you did not stay online for 24 hours a day. Way too vague, not enforcable in court.
3. If a game is purchased, one would think it's been authorized, right?
The completion of a transaction process between the user and Microsoft does not represent an illegal activity in any way. Microsoft is shitting on its userbase and some people just seem to think that's ok. Guess those people don't live in Europe and thus don't know about customer rights.
Edit: Or these people don't have any clue about legal things/law, such as this guy who does not know what conditions constitute a theft:
I see this a lot despite the mods making it clear that it's a no-no. A "junior" is someone that's new here, not new to the real world.
That's true. And they can also suffer the consequences of over-punishing people for taking advantage of Microsoft's own blunder.
GlamFM
Banned
Same thing.
Son of Cervantes
Member
Then you're an idiot.
Miles Quaritch
Member
No need to resort to insults.
Anyway, the ban threat seems to have passed for the most part. Sucks for those who were caught out, but I think everyone else can rest easy now...
Anyway, the ban threat seems to have passed for the most part. Sucks for those who were caught out, but I think everyone else can rest easy now...
GlamFM
Banned
wow..
Son of Cervantes
Member
If you think making an account for another region qualifies as a hack, then sorry, you're an imbecile.
GlamFM
Banned
I know people are talking around it, but it was more than just making an Oman xbox account.