Daybreak Game Company don’t like cheaters. Almost as much as Blizzard don’t like cheaters. John Smedley, president of the company, recently revealed that nearly 25,000 H1Z1 players have been banned for cheating.
He’s actually on something of a campaign against hackers and similar miscreants, and particularly against the sites that supply the cheats. ”Please keep using and supporting TMCHEATS,” he followed up. ”We aren’t banning users who use it at all.” TM Cheats is a well-known supplier of aimbots, anti-anti cheat software and other hacks, and if anything Smedley’s more angry at them than he is the hackers.
“You don’t think we know these cockroaches?”, Smedley tweeted in response to a fan query. “We do. We are going to be relentless and public. Screw not provoking them.”
Losing potential money from mass bans doesn’t bother Smedley either – he says that Daybreak doesn’t want any cash from those who break the rules of their game. Which is a stance typical gamers will probably appreciate. Having been on the wrong end of hackers recently (I’m looking at you, GTA Online), I think he was being a bit lenient about the whole thing.
Despite his current frustrations, I think Smedley will be reasonably pleased with H1Z1’s progress. Last month Daybreak announced that the MMO zombie survival sim had sold over a million Early Access copies, despite a bit of a rocky launch.
