Activision confirms it issues hardware bans to "repeat or serial" Call of Duty: Warzone cheaters
Rinse and repeat.
Activision has confirmed it does issue hardware bans to "repeat or serial" Call of Duty: Warzone cheaters.
In an update on the company's Call of Duty-related anti-cheat efforts, Activision confirmed it has issued more than 475,000 permabans in Call of Duty: Warzone to date.
"Some have asked if we issue hardware bans. We do issue hardware bans against repeat, or serial, cheaters. This is an important part of our effort to combat repeat offenders," Activision said.
The idea behind a hardware ban is it permanently prevents a cheater from playing Warzone because simply creating a new and free account is no longer an option.
This has been a constant issue with Warzone cheaters - those who are banned create new accounts they then use with the free-to-play battle royale to keep playing.
"Removing cheaters and taking away their ability to move to alternate accounts is a key focus for the security teams," Activision said.
Meanwhile, Activision has issued seven high-volume Warzone banwaves since February. There are daily bans issued seven days a week, too.
Activision is trying to stamp out the commercial market of cheat providers and resellers. This includes suspicious accounts, which are farmed and often sold to repeat offenders, Activision said. "We recently banned 45,000 fraudulent, black market accounts used by repeat offenders." This is one of the ways cheaters continue to play Warzone after a ban.
Warzone has a reputation for being a game afflicted by cheating - particularly on PC. It's a significant enough issue that some console players disable crossplay to avoid PC cheaters.