Ubisoft is taking cheating seriously in The Division. They've recently updated their policies on cheating. What are those new policies? Well, first-time offenders caught cheating are now getting permanently banned. No questions asked.
Gamespot is reporting that Ubisoft has decided to completely alter the way they handle cheaters following a successful ban-wave in The Division. The company previously took actions against more than 30,000 accounts caught in some form of cheating or exploiting the online shooter, and they rolled out 3,800 permanent bans, but the community felt as if that wasn't enough.
According to a post on the main website of The Division, Ubisoft explained that community feedback has shown them that they need to exercise harsher measures against hackers. The developers mention in the post that they are stepping up their punishment policy against cheaters...
[...] our 14 days suspension on first offense policy has not been dissuasive enough. Judging from your feedback, and based on what we witnessed when cheaters came back to the game, we have now decided to push our policy one step further: we will now start applying permanent bans on first offense
This applies to players in The Division caught using cheat engines or reported for using cheat engines. A lot of times these cheats take place within the Dark Zone, a PvP-oriented area where some of the game's best loot drops.
Ubisoft has noted that they will be vigilant in dropping banhammers on first-time offenders, completely forgoing the process of leniency.
The Division isn't the only game where Ubisoft is stepping up their measures against cheaters. The company also recently made a post over on the Rainbow Six: Siege website noting that they will also be employing stricter policies on first-time offenders who are caught cheating in the first-person shooter.
They've stated that any player caught in Rainbow Six: Siege using modified or unauthorized versions of the game, or running cheat engines and using memory modules to gain an advantage, will be permanently banned once they're caught. They also stated that any software providing third-party hacking capabilities, including wallhacks, aimbots, aimhacks or ammo hacks, will be permanently banned. Additionally, it sounds as if trolling and excessive griefing may also result in a permanent ban, given that they state that "causing detriment to other players' experience" will be grounds for a ban.
Ubisoft taking this aggressive stance with their games comes at the opportune time with E3 just around the corner; the event takes place next week. The eyes of the world's media will be on the event, and paying lip-service to proper customer satisfaction and support by getting rid of cheaters helps give them some good PR leverage going into E3. This could ring especially true if they have plans on unveiling a new multiplayer-focused game where gamers will want some kind of assurance that hackers and cheaters won't ruin the experience.
As far as The Division is concerned, it at least looks like Ubisoft is getting serious about keeping the hackers and cheaters out of the community.
