5,000 StarCraft II Cheaters Banned by Blizzard

StarCraft II is by far the biggest real time strategy title of the year, and as such, Blizzard, its developer and publisher, is taking strict action against those that try to cheat during multiplayer matches, with the latest batch of suspensions and bans going to around 5,000 users.

StarCraft II was one of the first titles to fully incorporate the company's new Battle.net service, meaning every action was recorded by the online service, including those that aimed at cheating the system.

Blizzard has patched plenty of the game's exploits with the recent 1.1 patch, and is planning to do more with the next one, which will probably arrive before the end of the year.

Until then though, the company has taken action around 5,000 StarCraft II players who violated the Battle.net terms of use and tried to use cheating or hack programs while playing the game.

All of these users were either suspended or banned outright, meaning they can't play the game anymore.

"We recently took action, including suspensions and bans, on over 5,000 StarCraft II players who were in violation of the Battle.net Terms of Use for cheating and/or using hack programs while playing," said the company in a Battle.net update.

"In addition to undermining the spirit of fair competition that’s essential to play on Battle.net, cheating and hacking can lead to stability and performance issues with the service. Maintaining a stable, safe, and secure online-gaming experience for legitimate players is a top priority for us, and we'll be continuing to keep watch on Battle.net and take action as needed."

StarCraft II is currently the most popular RTS in the world, and has been eagerly anticipated for 12 years, being launched on July 27 this year.

This is the first chapter in a planned trilogy, which starts with Wings of Liberty, continues with Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void, each focusing on one individual faction from the StarCraft universe.