Use a Glitch in MW2 on the 360 and Be Suspended from Live

[Shawn Zipay]

There's a glitch that's started to make the rounds amongst the Modern Warfare 2 crowd across all platforms. The glitch consists of using the game's Javelin missle to take out infantry units, perhaps you've seen a YouTube video or two of the glitch in action.

While Infinity Ward states that they're working on a fix and will push the update to Microsoft and Sony as soon as possible, that doesn't mean you're free to use the glitch until then. Stephen Toulouse, Director of Policy and Enforcement for Xbox Live, stated the following via his Twitter.

While IW works on getting the MW2 glitch fixed, people we catch using it will recieve suspensions from LIVE. Play fair everyone. :>

What are your thoughts on this sort of policy enforcement? We all hate playing against those that glitch, but to punish people whom use it by suspending their accounts?

[-:Nighthawk:-]

Re: Use a Glitch in MW2 on the 360 and Be Suspended from Live

"Glitches" are merely a difference between the developer's concept of how they thought they wanted the game to work, and how they actually made it work. Gamers are only provided, as a whole, what the developer actually created, and there is no information distribution channel that informs gamers of how they may or may not use the product.

As such, this policy is ludicrous. Yes, glitches are annoying, but they're how the game works. If the developer wants it to work another way, they need to patch it. Until they do so, playing a game the way it's made is fair and acceptable. Otherwise you get into a situation where you can start saying "playing in thus-and-such a way is not what we had in mind, so we're suspending you" to all sorts of other tactics.

[This doesn't refer to hacks--3rd party modification of software, changing it to something different from what others have, is a different matter altogether.]

Can you imagine players being suspended from playing CS for boosting? Sure, boosting is a "glitch" in the sense that it's not specifically intended by the developer of the game, and can sometimes allow things that are physically impossible in the real world. That said, it hasn't been patched out, and is now considered a perfectly acceptable strategy in most situations for all leagues.

Utter rubbish, but by now we should have come to expect heavy-handed and ill-considered policies from Microsoft.

[Unregistered]

Re: Use a Glitch in MW2 on the 360 and Be Suspended from Live

"Glitches" are merely a difference between the developer's concept of how they thought they wanted the game to work, and how they actually made it work. Gamers are only provided, as a whole, what the developer actually created, and there is no information distribution channel that informs gamers of how they may or may not use the product.

As such, this policy is ludicrous. Yes, glitches are annoying, but they're how the game works. If the developer wants it to work another way, they need to patch it. Until they do so, playing a game the way it's made is fair and acceptable. Otherwise you get into a situation where you can start saying "playing in thus-and-such a way is not what we had in mind, so we're suspending you" to all sorts of other tactics.

[This doesn't refer to hacks--3rd party modification of software, changing it to something different from what others have, is a different matter altogether.]

Can you imagine players being suspended from playing CS for boosting? Sure, boosting is a "glitch" in the sense that it's not specifically intended by the developer of the game, and can sometimes allow things that are physically impossible in the real world. That said, it hasn't been patched out, and is now considered a perfectly acceptable strategy in most situations for all leagues.

Utter rubbish, but by now we should have come to expect heavy-handed and ill-considered policies from Microsoft.

I don't think so
Not sure where you're coming from, whats the difference between 3rd party hacks that allow you to kill faster than say sitting inside a rock where you can kill but not be killed, I guess you must use them, well everyone can do glitches but the difference is you will get a bad rep , just ain't the way you play games, its basically comes down to whether you want to cheat to win or not?

[-:Nighthawk:-]

Re: Use a Glitch in MW2 on the 360 and Be Suspended from Live

I don't see how playing within the confines of what the game, as released, allows can be considered cheating. Third party hacks are outside of these rules, and clearly are cheats. But the only viable, consistent definition of rules within a game are what it lets you do, and what it doesn't let you do.

Anything more than that becomes a police situation, where you have laws that dictate "proper behavior" even though actions outside of that are entirely possible. I stand firm in my position that if you can get inside a rock and become invincible, this is a problem with the game code, not the user. Is it cheap? Sure, we'll both agree it's cheap and could even be considered dishonorable. Playing exclusively with the AWP is considered "cheap" by many CS players, but is certainly within the constraints of what the game allows, and thus not "cheating."

So I think we can agree on the "honor" part of the discussion, but we definitely do not see eye-to-eye on whether playing in dishonorable ways that the game allows is the same as cheating.