off course there is a difference (hence my "normaly" addition to the text)... but again it´s not the customers fault, it´s still the store that sells the game that is doing the shady stuff here.
-
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.
Just got my console (and I assume my account) banned from Live for playing Halo 4.
- Thread starter Skel1ingt0n
- Start date
off course there is a difference (hence my "normaly" addition to the text)... but again it´s not the customers fault, it´s still the store that sells the game that is doing the shady stuff here.
This rather proves how airheaded microsoft is, shipping the game more than 1 month in advance.
Op failed at basics, just knowing the release date should make it suspicious, clear lack of following important(any) news, coming out of the cave more often is highly recommended by the US Health and Human Services Department.
Op failed at basics, just knowing the release date should make it suspicious, clear lack of following important(any) news, coming out of the cave more often is highly recommended by the US Health and Human Services Department.
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
I don't know about other parts of the world, but here in Croatia it's illegal not to take a receipt (or not to issue it), and you can get fined for it.
Canis lupus
Member
I feel sorry for ya man, buying a new console, only to be banned just because you played a game early. :/
Which is why Microsoft is unbanning those that prove they own retail copies. They would like actual receipts, so that they can go after the retail stores. But according to Frankie they're accepting any modicum of proof.
No, it proves how popular Halo is, and how long it takes to ship 6 million copies of something to every corner of the globe.
matty2Dfraud
Banned
dispute? no. you guys obviously aren't winning any debates here.
I´m also in Europe.. don´t know if there is a law here like you just described. Are we talking specific product or everything here..?
I'm glad to have such an impartial jury.
element
Member
I really can't think of any in todays world with debt/credit cards. I think you a missing the point here as well. There was never a transaction made. The OP even admits the store will just "ring out on launch day". This isn't an issue of not being given a receipt, or losing it, or it falling out of the bag, or not even being given one. This is an issue of the game not even being rung up by the register. I can understand a register malfunction, but if a clerk told me "So here is the deal. The system won't let me sell you this, so would it be ok if you just give me cash and we call it good?" Ummm. No thanks. For all I know the guy is just going to pocket the money and the game will be shrinkage.
I agree that it falls under the stores responsibility, but I'm still curious how the OP even knew the store had copies.
You haven't said what MS should do to tackle this problem yet. People are whining about them being more pro-consumer, but tell me how they can do that while still addressing the issues of piracy and stores breaking street dates. It's all very well shouting "they shouldn't do this!", but what should they do? Tell me.
matty2Dfraud
Banned
i just have enough common sense to see this is an issue between Microsoft, distributors, and the retailers. The consumer is not at fault here and should not be punished for the actions of the others. Want to call that being impartial? that's cool.
gaming_noob
Member
Sony is evil. Fuck Sony.
NinjaBoiX
Member
Sucks you got banned, and it's a shitty practice by MS. Having said that, you've got to ask yourself why you took the risk of playing it early, being on GAF, you must've been aware of this kind of stuff. I'm not condoning it, just saying I'd have played SP offline and left MP till release day.
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
Everything. From things you buy in grocery stores to... Locomotives, I guess. Just recently there's been a wave of inspectors waiting on street corners and preying on people with shopping bags.
matty2Dfraud
Banned
i don't know... punish the distributors that sell to these retailers breaking dates? punish the retailers directly? come up with the technology to prevent this seeing as how they are a software/hardware manufacturer? Anything besides punish the consumer for buying a game? fuck if i know.
Jesus fucking christ. What.
Which I'm sure they do, but what about the rampant piracy issues? Tell me how you deal with that without any legitimate consumers being caught in the crossfire.
No, you don't, do you?matty2Dfraud said:
MightyHedgehog
Member
Man, I can't believe that this thread is so big. Don't see the problem unless MS doesn't unban with provided proof. I mean, if you bought it legit, you should have no problem clearing it up with a receipt. The worst that should happen is a few days' inconvenience of not being connected to Live. Still, anyone showing up on this forum to complain about being banned for playing something online as high profile as Halo 4 already knew they were playing it earlier than they should have. If people don't want the chances of being spoiled on any given website or forum to go higher, then it's reasonable to see the publisher enforce the dates they gave to retailers who ordered their titles to sell on the agreed upon date.
Exactly, it's impossible to fight piracy without there being some blowback for legitimate consumers. But that doesn't mean a company shouldn't try to fight piracy. At least there are methods in place for making things right when actual customers are caught in this crossfire.
We simply don't live in an idealistic world where Microsoft can ban only pirates with 100% accuracy, or where Microsoft can just automagically know which stores are breaking street dates and stop these problems at the source.
Why?
If the person had a receipt, all is good. He bought the game fair and square. I assume the OP isn't a total retard and knew that when he was told he would be "ringed up" on launch day, that he wouldn't be charged till then. Putting all this together means that he gets the game without a receipt and his wallet is whatever cost of game lighter. Key here: No receipt. What is the return policy for a game with no receipt? How much do you get taxed on a sale with no receipt? Does Microsoft have to support the product you "bought" without proof of purchase? Does the warranty start from the day you "borrowed" the game or the release day? The list can go on an on.
I don't want to use hyperbole but it is pretty effective at describing this particular situation so I will: Open movie theater, show movie before its released elsewhere, say you sold more tickets than you did on release date and profit. At the end of the day he still was playing something that wasn't the store's right to sell or his right to play.
I can't blame him for not knowing it was not his right to play, and some on here don't want to blame the store for it not being their right to sell, but adding both together and the details of THIS situation I can say the transaction was illegitimate.
I think the discussion has gotten so convoluted that people don't realize the store didn't sell him the game and he didn't actually buy the game. And THEN Microsoft banned him when he played the game. We really have no evidence that can be used to defend him, in fact in this very thread we have evidence that incriminates him. No receipt = stolen game, why is this such a radical thought?
I guess Microsoft's perspective should use OP's word as substitute for proof of purchase? There are so many scenarios where OP is in the wrong, and there is only one where he is in the right. Unfortunately, he has revealed that he didn't buy the game today, or tomorrow, or even the next day instead he "borrowed it" and will buy it when the game comes out. On whose authority is he allowed to play the game early? If the store granted him the sale early, fine. But they didn't, surely sane people can see this. Microsoft can and should go after that store. Unfortunately that store covered their ass, and the OP did not. He "stole" the game for a week. Got banned. Cried. Got unbanned. And Microsoft is evil.
My last point before I duck out this discussion is that many people here are taking a leap of faith in that the game was not stolen, and while their may be no irrefutable evidence that says game was stolen, their is no receipt and I am to draw my conclusions from that and that alone.
matty2Dfraud
Banned
i enjoy how you edited my post. thanks for doing it for me.
archnemesis
Member
You are innocent until proven guilty. Not the other way around.
wauw.. so I go to the shop and buy a carton of milk and I don´t keep the reciept, I get fined..?
I don't see that listed in the EULA.
Lé Blade Runner
Member
Shouldn't be a problem since it is a legitimate copy and not a pirated version being played on a modded console. If you call up Microsoft, explain the situation, send the photos and / or receipt as proof of purchase, they will probably unban you. At least I sincerely hope they will.
Just keep us updated, OP. I want to hear how this one goes down.
Just keep us updated, OP. I want to hear how this one goes down.
Well if he produces some form of proof of purchase than he is innocent, but he said himself he didn't get a receipt. So he didn't technically buy the game, right? But he did play it. I know he should have a chance to demonstrate the legitimacy of his transaction, but he already said he has no receipt.
matty2Dfraud
Banned
EULAs are obviously law.
archnemesis
Member
I don't care about what the EULA says. I'm talking about ethics in the broader sense of what is right and wrong.
You fail to understand how a closed network like Xbox Live works.
Detect custom firmware? A legitimate consumer is not going to have custom firmware.
If that's not possible, then they should do nothing. You can't do things on this level where there's a possibility of legitimate consumers being caught in the crossfire. Any course of action in a case such as this with those types of risks that isn't "nothing" would be reckless and potentially harming the consumers with no actual benefit for them. Not acceptable.
element
Member
Perhaps when you rob a bank or kill someone, but with software TOS and EULA you are guilty until you prove your innocence. MS, Sony, Nintendo, Valve, Apple, and do anything they want (or close to it) with your account or hardware.
matty2Dfraud
Banned
But he is obviously guilty because he has already been punished. Oh, so now if you don't have a receipt you didn't technically buy something? Have I been stealing from the drink/snack machines at work this entire time? hope i don't get fired.
There is always a risk of false positives. There's no 100% surefire detection method, for Xbox Live or any comparable digital system.
RomanticHeroX
Member
Getting a game more than a week early (as the orange seal that you have to break to open it will tell you), without a receipt on the premise that you'll be properly rung up later is so obviously atypical for a retail transaction that no one could possibly be unaware that something unusual was happening. Also, you go for it knowing ahead of time the game's release date and the possibility, however likely, that people can be banned for playing games ahead of official release. That is severely pushing your luck. It's nice someone is taking care of it for the OP, but I wouldn't have any sympathy for someone getting their console banned in a similar situation.
matty2Dfraud
Banned
Oh, since it's a closed network they must be able to write and pass their own consumer laws that governments the world over must abide by. I understand now.
MightyHedgehog
Member
As it was stated earlier in the thread, this was the result of an automatic process to prevent leaks and otherwise unauthorized play for a title meant only to be publicly consumed on a given date as agreed to by retailers who sell it. This isn't someone being jailed or sentenced unfairly. If MS didn't have something in place, more people would be regularly spoiled due to so many unenforced bans on early copies being sold and played by the public. I don't care that much about spoilers, but a lot of people do, so I can appreciate the reasons for banning on that level while I'm sure MS has other reasons for keeping it controlled. Besides, I would think that the bans would be limited to launch date, like other titles supposedly have.
Lé Blade Runner
Member
This is unfortunately true. You can't take legal actions against them if they ban you on terms of suspicion ( and in this case they probably just auto-banned the OP for detecting Halo 4 being played before the release date on suspicion of it being a fraudulent copy ).
No, you don't.
Canis lupus
Member
What has that anything to do with all of this?
The only thing I left out is this: -
But I left that out because I already said that they have been constantly trying to do this already.matty2Dfraud said:
They created the XGD3 disc format that Halo 4 is on to try and combat piracy. A disc format that holds 8.13 GB of data while a blank dual layer disc can only hold 7.95. But the modders found a way to modify certain models of Lite-On DVD burner so that 8.13 GB of data could be overburned to a 7.95 GB capacity disc and all of that time and investment that MS put into trying to stop piracy was thrown out of the window yet again. Things like this have happened time and time again. It's not like they're sitting back and doing nothing except wielding a ban hammer.
They can't just magic up a technology that completely stops piracy any more than Nintendo or Sony can, so they have to come up with procedures to deal with the issues that piracy causes.
You're just trolling IMO.
Anyway, this is all much better than getting banned/locked out completely from your account because you were trying to change its email address... because that was an email address from a free provider that no longer has your email address on their system.
And when asked about security questions, you just get asked a bunch of non-specific questions about email accounts and details you can't remember at all (what were the last emails recieved, what purchases have you made recently on the credit card linked to your account, etc).
And when you try to figure out who you can talk to, it just sends you in a constant loop around that makes you fill out the same security form to which you don't know the answers to, because any questions it asks are about obscure things that occurred years ago. To compound matters, it has a 24 hour lock out for each attempt.
So at this point, my account, all the save games, all the games locked to it, etc, etc are all sitting in limbo, because the whole thing is too much hassle to deal with at this point in time.
And when asked about security questions, you just get asked a bunch of non-specific questions about email accounts and details you can't remember at all (what were the last emails recieved, what purchases have you made recently on the credit card linked to your account, etc).
And when you try to figure out who you can talk to, it just sends you in a constant loop around that makes you fill out the same security form to which you don't know the answers to, because any questions it asks are about obscure things that occurred years ago. To compound matters, it has a 24 hour lock out for each attempt.
So at this point, my account, all the save games, all the games locked to it, etc, etc are all sitting in limbo, because the whole thing is too much hassle to deal with at this point in time.
Anyone have any ideas of what I can do to get access back to my account? Last time I tried was 3 months ago.
matty2Dfraud
Banned
i wish your brain was a closed network. i wouldn't subscribe.
TRHolmes(y)
Banned
Halo? More like GAYlo!!!
element
Member
Yes, because your can of soda is exactly like buying a video game from a store.
Screw the receipt, that isn't even the point. It is the lack of transaction in the register/POS. kneePat explains it pretty well by calling it borrowed. In terms of the store, the item was never sold. The game is currently in limbo until the 6th and magically it is sold. The clerk at the store didn't want to run a transaction as it would record that Halo was sold before the street date possibility getting the store in trouble.
To a certain degree yes. It is a private network. If MS/Sony/Nintendo/Valve/Apple think you are doing something against the TOS/EULA they can punish you.
Then don't do it. It's pretty simple.
I have no idea where you're from (or where the OP is from) but it amazes me that you can't see a transaction. He went to the store, paid some money, he received the game. He didn't steal it, he paid the the price it was being sold at. That is a transaction. Whether he got a receipt or not doesn't matter one bit.
matty2Dfraud
Banned
A transaction took place. If the store isn't reporting it properly it is on them. Microsoft should probably do something about this happening. Punishing some consumer that just dropped $60 on a game isn't going to stop the store from selling it. It's just going to piss off consumers.
RomanticHeroX
Member
Just because money was exchanged that doesn't mean everything is legit. If I go into a Gamestop, give the clerk $20 and he looks away as I walk out with something from the back that's not a legitimate sale. In this case the lack of receipt matters.
Ignoring a rampant issue with piracy because of false positives is also pretty fucking dumb.
What they need to do is make sure they have good procedures in place to deal with any legitimate consumers that do get caught in the crossfire, while also continuing to punish stores that break street dates and working on trying to find ways to stop piracy altogether. The alternative is allowing pirates to just get on with it, which makes no sense whatsoever.