Call Of Duty: Warzone Players Petition Against Alleged ‘Wrongful Bans’

Activision and Infinity Ward have been working hard to curb the number of cheaters in both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and the free-to-play Battle Royale, Warzone. Thousands of players have been banned from the games, but a number have taken issue with what they believe to be a serious flaw in the games’ anti-cheating system.

A Change.org petition has now been started by players who feel they’ve been wronged, not only by what they see as an “unjustified” ban, but also with the lack of support from Activision when it comes to appeals.

Credit: Activision

The petition, which has received over 1800 signatures at the time of writing, reads as follows: “Activision Publishing, Inc.’s 2019 game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and its free-to-play battle royale counterpart Call of Duty: Warzone have been banning innocent gamers without giving them reasons for the ban. Most of these players have not cheated on the game yet they are banned. Warnings have not been given and the bans were permanent.”

Started by John Jefferson Sy, the petition continues: “Most of these people are loyal fans of the franchise and are patrons for many years. I, for example, have bought every Call of Duty game since 2007’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. On 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, I have spent on the game, three battle passes, and many Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Points (CP) which amount to a few hundred dollars and are now nothing because of the permanent ban…

Credit: Activision

“Activision Publishing, Inc. and its developer Infinity Ward, Inc.’s support team is basically non-existent. Attempts to look for support about bans only lead to “Temporary and permanent suspensions from all game modes are final and are not subject to review. Activision Support cannot assist with or answer questions about enforcements.” We have the right to know why our accounts have been revoked.”

Gamers are now calling to have their accounts reinstated, or “at least [be given] a reason for the ban.”

GameByte was approached by two players who’ve been banned from the game, one of whom believes the so-called “ban wave” is due to the latest anti-cheat system being used by the games.

Credit: Activision

“Activision/Blizzard and Infinity Ward put out a new Anti-Cheat system with one of the more recent updates. This allowed them to search through the other open and installed programs on each of our computers,” @jordan_nufc98 told me, providing me with a clip of his ban.

“We’ve done tests on what programs cause it and it could be anything from an emulator to play Nintendo games, Nvidia support software, MAC address changers…One thing all of are for certain is, none of these programs touch Call of Duty.”

He continued: “Most of us don’t even know how to hack if we wanted to. But we’ve been banned for just having them on our computers.

“…They have a policy that if you get banned for any reason, there is no appeal process and no one from the company can talk to you about it other than send you a link to their Guidelines and Safety page, which we’ve looked over multiple times and narrowed the cause down to external software being the reason for the bans.”

A second CoD player, @kennygunit, also reached out to GameByte with a similar story.

“About 2 days ago, I hopped into a Warzone match, and then 30 seconds later I was kicked and permanently banned from the game. I tried reaching out to Activision support, but they says bans are final and there is nothing they can do,” they said.

“I’ve spent a couple hundred on this game between the initial purchases, battle passes, and DLC. It’s kind of messed up to have 0 support.”

GameByte has reached out to Activision for comment.

Featured Image Credit: Activision