The Division: Players angry over bans issued over in-game exploits

The Division’s Community Manager has warned players they’ll be punished for exploiting in-game glitches like a big one found within the game’s new Incursion.

Players discovered that Survivor Link and Mobile Cover could be used to circumvent the Incursion itself, leading Division Agents to successfully bypass enemies and alarms to pick up rare endgame loot. The nature of the exploit also meant that the loot could be obtained again and again rather than once a week as planned by developer Ubisoft Massive.

Said Community Manager reminded players that Ubisoft’s Code of Conduct states that “exploitation of any new or known issues or bugs is forbidden and may result in account suspension or revocation.” As such, Agents caught exploiting in that fashion will first receive a temporary suspension followed by a permanent ban if they persist.

Players took to social media to fire back at Ubisoft as a result.

“You are in charge of the final product that is delivered to your customers,” Reddit user CarpeBedlam asserted.

“You get to decide what we can and can’t do in your game world. You set the rules of this world, we simply inhabit that world and use the mechanics given to us… by you. Bottom line: if you don’t want people doing something in your game, design your code so it’s not possible.”

The outlying issue has quieted down for now; Ubisoft has already issued a patch that stops the exploit. Still, a core issue remains: players are quite angry that they’re being punished for in-game exploits that find and attack gaps in coding after they’ve been tested and released to the public.

Where do you stand on the issue: should exploits be allowed to be used if they’re found, or do those that find them distance themselves from the game’s main player base because they can become overpowered?