I pirated 360 games and MS banned me, what the hell?

Geo-location via IP address is actually quite easy.

Really? You mean they wrote a GUI interface using visual basic to track the IP address?

Like I said, they have no way of knowing that I'm not a legal resident of Oman or that my family friend isn't. Just because I'm in NA doesn't mean I can't be a resident of another country.
 
And if it was for simply getting one free game for one console via Oman style there would be a thread on GAF about being perma banned, along with a thread at the Cheap ass gamer forums as well.

I'm not really getting the mystery aspect of this thread. OP was banned for sharing games with multiple people, something else entirely, or a bit of both.

The Smug Vs The Entitled.

The unstopabble object vs the inamovible force.
 
Oh, the irony of this post. An equally awful analogy. An incorrect ringing up by a cashier =/= knowingly exploiting a loophole illegally. An actually accurate analogy would be walking into a store and taking a game that was unknowingly left unlocked, but that'll likely soar far above your head.

man you seem to be pretty hostile in this thread,bad dat at work?
 
I don't see why people are being blaze about this, even if the OP was in the wrong the fact is that Microsoft do fuck up sometimes, Microsoft don't give a shit about individual gamers and the idea that you can be prevented from playing games you've paid money for should be illegal. The sooner the better too.
 
hope it never happens to you.

Break street date and you may get banned too. Fifa hack? banned
I'm pretty damn sure that it won't happen to me.

Bans for breaking street date is a tricky one. From what I understand, as with the case if Halo 4, MS has no way to tell if a game has been bought legitimately or has been pirated - so they ban them all. I think anyone who had Halo 4 before two weeks of the release date was banned.

Saying that, a fair few people were unbanned for proving that they had purchased the game (exceptions exist, of course; no system is perfect)

No idea what the FIFA hack is, but "hack" already tells me that any ban would probably be justified.
 
This smug "you violated the TOS, so you deserve it" attitude makes me cringe. The fact that people who employ it choose to completely ignore the fact that no other bans for the Oman error were reported along with other things — makes it worse.

The fact that no other bans were handed out seems to make SOMETHING fairly obvious...
 
Wait, so your console is banned? You can't play your offline games anymore?

Thats fucked up. Digital future indeed.

He can play his previously downloaded games that are still on his HDD and his disk games. Also, since his US account with most of his legal stuff is fine, he could use it on a different console and play his games on that.
 
So because you don't know when a game comes out, you know when it comes out early? yep, makes sense
What are you on about? A store could break the street date and a family walk in and buy that game, completely unaware that it shouldn't officially be on sale.
 
I'm pretty damn sure that it won't happen to me.

Bans for breaking street date is a tricky one. From what I understand, as with the case if Halo 4, MS has no way to tell if a game has been bought legitimately or has been pirated - so they ban them all. I think anyone who had Halo 4 before two weeks of the release date was banned.

Saying that, a fair few people were unbanned for proving that they had purchased the game (exceptions exist, of course; no system is perfect)

No idea what the FIFA hack is, but "hack" already tells me that any ban would probably be justified.

In this case Hack means that the game (fifa) opened your system to be hacked. Said hack also prompted MS to ban your system.
 
INo idea what the FIFA hack is, but "hack" already tells me that any ban would probably be justified.

I'm pretty sure it involves someone else hacking your account without your knowledge. I'm not 100% certain how it works, but the accounts are of the victims, not the hackers.
 
I used the Costa Rica and Morroc xploit, I got Injustice and activate the downloads for the other 10 games but I didn't complete the downloads (after this I deleted my Morroc account).
Did they banned OP's main account too or just the accounts created for the exploit?
 
This is why I like my games on physical media; preferably cartridges. You get caught up in one of them newfangled digital distribution scam-- I mean, schemes, even though you bought a game, you don't actually own it. They can even stop you from playing it. I'd like to see Rare try to stop me from playing my copy of R.C. Pro-am.
 
He couldn't get banned for the Oman thing, since it was a glitch. You're not stealing if something glitches up and you take advantage of it.

I'm sorry but yes, you are still stealing. How about some personal accountability instead of putting the blame of poor behavior on a corporation? They wanted free games, so they put their hands in the cookie jar just because Mom wasn't looking.

I'm sure if I logged into my bank and found out that somehow I got logged into the account for somebody else, but then I decided well, since it's the bank's mistake, I'll just help myself to all this person's money, that the police will agree it's not my fault.
 
This smug "you violated the TOS, so you deserve it" attitude makes me cringe. The fact that people who employ it choose to completely ignore the fact that no other bans for the Oman error were reported along with other things — makes it worse.

Does it matter that nobody else has been banned for it?
It was still a shady thing to do, and people that did it knew that it was.
Those that did not get banned for it? Great for them. It was still exploiting something. It was still fraud. It was not a "glitch". It was people straight out lying and misrepresenting where they live and where they are from to receive services meant for that area. "Glitch" is a cute and innocent word, but very fragile.
It may not have even been what caused the ban.
But if that makes you cringe you need some thicker skin.
 
Incidentally, how do you know that downloading a free game from another region is even prohibited by Terms of Use (that's right, it's ToU, not ToS) of Xbox Live?
 
I used the Costa Rica and Morroc xploit, I got Injustice and activate the downloads for the other 10 games but I didn't complete the downloads (after this I deleted my Morroc account).
Did they banned OP's main account too or just the accounts created for the exploit?

His Oman account and Console are banned. US account is fine. All signs point to this ban coming from game sharing or some other more blatant ToS suspension rather than the Oman exploit.
 
I find it funny that it's illegal to download pirated torrents online, but it is totally ok for companies to remove your access to your console and games you bought for no reason at all. They are both a form of theft, but only one is prosecuted.
 
Well, you stole something, you didn't expect a Platinum Trophy back, did you?

Achievement_Unlocked___Banned_by_Sh.png
 
did you buy the xbox second hand???

chances are it had a flashed dvd firmware but you probably didn't know about as they don't usually do console bans for xbox live related stuff...they just ban the live account
 
I'm kind of curious how other digital distribution outlets handle things like this. Is it possible to be banned from iTunes?
 
Oh, the irony of this post. An equally awful analogy. An incorrect ringing up by a cashier =/= knowingly exploiting a loophole illegally. An actually accurate analogy would be walking into a store and taking a game that was unknowingly left unlocked, but that'll likely soar far above your head.
That's an even worse analogy. It's more like that the clerk had labelled a bunch of games with '$0' and then put them through the till and allowed customers to take them. Not the customer's fault.
 
did you buy the xbox second hand???

chances are it had a flashed dvd firmware but you probably didn't know about as they don't usually do console bans for xbox live related stuff...they just ban the live account

No, i bought it in the store, end of 2011.

Last game that i was playing was World of Tanks beta and Ascend beta.
 
did you buy the xbox second hand???

chances are it had a flashed dvd firmware but you probably didn't know about as they don't usually do console bans for xbox live related stuff...they just ban the live account

This could actually be a possibility, Had a friend who bought a used 360 from GAME (UK Store) and it was banned at random one day


Edit: Never mind, ninjaed by OP
 
The law sadly, is black and white. Microsoft and their TOS is probably the same way.
This is to our detriment. I don't know if the OP did anything wrong. He probably did a region change scammy thing (for all I know) but... Jesus Microsoft.. dude's probably been XBL member for 5-6-7 years or more, bought tons of arcade and online retail games. Jesus fuck, how about suspending him a bit, and placing a phone call to get to the bottom of whatever the fuck you think he did?

I don't know man, if he's guilty he's guilty but there's way too much "presumed guilty" until proven fucking innocent going on with XBL. I hate hackers and cheaters as much as then next guy, and I know all you tits who'll say "tos tos tos tos" but come on..

Suspend the guy. Temp ban. CALL IT A TEMP BAN. Get in contact with him. Find out the story. If you already know the story, then say exactly why he/she is being banned your message to them (ie: you changed your region to take advantage of a deal OMGGGGGGGGGG BAN BAN BAN!" or other such totally legit reasons to toss off a long time customer, etc)
 
If it were the Oman thing, the appropriate response from Microsoft would be to revoke the licence to that one game, not banning the system. "Hurr you broke the rules, suck it up" people have a scary idea of appropriate reaction.

Of course, there's usually more to these stories.
 
I don't believe that the OP is telling us the whole story.

I have a couple of friends who were quite indignant about being banned from XBL a few years back despite the fact that they were crazy pirates. Getting caught can make people act crazy and plead innocence when they know damn well that they aren't.

Like others have said, if it was due to the Oman thing, we'd have a massive thread about it.
 
Some people mentioned he might have been banned for game sharing. What does that mean on the 360? I assume that's not the equivalent of the legal and permitted PS3 game sharing that Sony has allowed in the past?

Is that just multiple people using the same account on different consoles?
 
That's an even worse analogy. It's more like that the clerk had labelled a bunch of games with '$0' and then put them through the till and take them. Not the customer's fault.

Closer still would be the clerk marking the goods as "free to residents of Oman" and the customer using a fake ID to defraud the vendor.

It wasn't possible to get them by mistake, you had to jump through hoops to defraud MS of the games.
 
Does it matter that nobody else has been banned for it?
It was still a shady thing to do, and people that did it knew that it was.
Those that did not get banned for it? Great for them. It was still exploiting something.
It may not have even been what caused the ban.
But if that makes you cringe you need some thicker skin.

It's not really about the actual arguments against the glitch, it's more about the uninformed "I'm an upstanding citizen speaking from my ivory tower right here and you are a horrible person for doing that horrible illegal I dunno what exactly, but it seems shady anyway, so you must have broken the TOS and of course you did it knowingly, because that's how these things happen" passive aggressive bullshit. Even if the OP did something wrong (and it's arguable), what's the point in being almost openly hostile towards him in this thread?
 
I'm kind of curious how other digital distribution outlets handle things like this. Is it possible to be banned from iTunes?

They seem to just ignore loopholes like having multiple accounts to access free content that's geolocked.

I imagine bans are for more series crimes like usage of fake/stole credit cards and such.
 
Some people mentioned he might have been banned for game sharing. What does that mean on the 360? I assume that's not the equivalent of the legal and permitted PS3 game sharing that Sony has allowed in the past?

Is that just multiple people using the same account on different consoles?

When you buy something on XBL you get a console license and gamertag license (if system detects one of them, you can play), I assume the people in this thread mean buying DLC on another persons xbox, giving them the console license while you play with the gamertag license
 
Closer still would be the clerk marking the goods as "free to residents of Oman" and the customer using a fake ID to defraud the vendor.

It wasn't possible to get them by mistake, you had to jump through hoops to defraud MS of the games.

I'm almost with you, except instead of using a fake ID, the customer just told the cashier that they were from Oman, and they gave them the game.
 
Again, from what he's posted in the other thread he didn't get banned for actually taking advantage of the free Oman games, rather he shared the games with three different people and consoles and got banned for that.

Why exactly is this a problem? If you get a game for free, you still own it don't you? Is MS ok with sharing games you paid money for?

Every time these ban threads come up, the only thing I get out of them is that MS' TOS is completely ass backwards. Banning users for exploiting loopholes is a big no-no.
 
I've never done anything else or similar. It cant be anything else. I've never shared my account to anyone nor activated or transfered licence to other console.

It is not that i got every free game they had made available until june of this year and nothing and it is legal
 
If it were the Oman thing, the appropriate response from Microsoft would be to revoke the licence to that one game, not banning the system. "Hurr you broke the rules, suck it up" people have a scary idea of appropriate reaction.

Of course, there's usually more to these stories.

That's not an appropriate response because it does nothing to discourage further exploitation of the system, if the only risk to getting caught is losing the goods you stole, there is no incentive to not try again another time.
 
I find it funny that it's illegal to download pirated torrents online, but it is totally ok for companies to remove your access to your console and games you bought for no reason at all. They are both a form of theft, but only one is prosecuted.

Seriously? Read what you're agreeing to when you pay money for digital licenses. It's definitely not "buying" a "game."
If one doesn't agree with the terms, don't pay money for it.
 
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