Chapter 454: Justice Rains from Above!
Chen Mo couldn’t care less about what other companies did, but when it came to *Overwatch*, he was willing to crack down hard.
Of course, many players supported Chen Mo’s decision. Most of them were Chen Mo’s fans, who trusted him and had grown frustrated with cheaters, desperately hoping for a permanent solution to the cheating problem.
At the very least, Chen Mo had firmly proposed a solution, which was far better than other game companies doing nothing and letting cheaters run rampant.
Players were fiercely debating.
But Chen Mo remained completely unmoved. A day later, *Overwatch* released an emergency update, adding a detection program.
On the day of the update, Chen Mo obtained some shocking data through this detection program.
On the first day of the new version, 3.28 million players logged in, and 6.4% of them were blocked by the detection program.
Were there false positives? Definitely. Some players installed auxiliary devices for single-player or RPG games on their VR gaming pods, similar to plugins, which weren’t necessarily cheats.
Any auxiliary device from an unknown source would be blocked by the detection program, preventing login.
But it was certain that among the blocked players, a large portion were cheaters.
At the same time, the first batch of banned accounts was announced, totaling over 4,000.
These were players who had been reported frequently and were blatantly cheating with no pretense of skill.
While players were still arguing over Chen Mo’s previous long post, his next Weibo post arrived.
“Notice of Penalties Regarding Cheating in *Overwatch*:”
“After the new version of *Overwatch* updated its detection program, a total of 210,000 gaming pods were blocked from logging in. Being blocked by the detection program does not necessarily mean cheating; some auxiliary devices from unknown sources can also trigger the program’s alerts.”
“For players who were mistakenly blocked, as long as they stop using auxiliary devices from unknown sources, they can continue playing. Since we cannot confirm whether these players were cheating, we are only blocking them without imposing penalties.”
“Additionally, after manual verification, we have locked in the first batch of confirmed cheaters. All accounts verified to have violated the rules are permanently banned, including the ID card numbers associated with those accounts. We reserve the right to impose further penalties.”
“Thunder Interactive hereby guarantees that we will continue to provide a fair and just gaming environment for *Overwatch* players, strictly cracking down on any behavior that undermines game fairness.”
“Justice will not be absent, nor should it be delayed!”
“Finally, thank you again to all players for your support and love for Thunder Interactive and *Overwatch*. Thank you!”
The accompanying image showed Pharah soaring in the sky, unleashing her ultimate ability, with the words “Justice Rains from Above” written on it, thrilling the players.
Below the long post, a list of banned accounts was attached, detailing the account names and game IDs of over 4,000 players.
As soon as this post was released, a large number of players cheered!
“It’s here! Justice rains from above!”
“Awesome, Chen Mo reacts fast! The first batch of banned accounts is out already!”
“Actually, the bans aren’t the main point—it’s the detection program! Where are those sanctimonious people who criticized Chen Mo before? Look at this data: 210,000 gaming pods were blocked!”
“Right, even if some were false positives, most of them were probably cheaters, right? Tsk, hundreds of thousands of cheaters. No wonder this game was unplayable—so many cheaters!”
“I thought Chen Mo was overreacting before, but now it’s clearly necessary! I feel like cheaters have decreased since the update. I played all morning and didn’t encounter a single one!”
“Yeah, probably all blocked, right?”
“Well done! As always, Chen Mo never disappoints players. Di Dynasty and Zen Intent, take notes!”
“Heh, they can’t learn from him. Only Chen Mo has the guts to demand the highest permissions for VR gaming pods from players.”
“It’s not about guts; it’s about reputation. Players trust Chen Mo, so he can pull this off!”
“Great, this game is playable again!”
After the detection program went live in *Overwatch*, players unanimously cheered. Some players who had been skeptical initially switched to supporting Chen Mo’s decision after seeing the data he released.
Because the data showed just how useful the detection program was!
Among the players who logged into *Overwatch* that day, 6.4% were suspected of using cheats. Even if only one-tenth of them were actual cheaters, that was still about 0.5%.
If these 0.5% of players were spread across different matches, their impact would be ten times greater.
Considering that each match involved different players, the influence would expand even further! The longer it went on, the more legitimate players would be affected.
This data also proved that there were indeed many cheaters in *Overwatch*, and Chen Mo’s measure was necessary!
Many players could clearly feel that cheaters in the game had decreased. Those blatant cheaters who openly slaughtered others were basically gone.
Obviously, the vast majority of players wanted a fair and just competitive environment in FPS games and despised cheaters.
However, soon some players posted appeals on the *Overwatch* official forum, claiming their accounts had been wrongly banned.
These players swore they had never cheated and demanded Chen Mo lift the bans.
For these players, Chen Mo specifically instructed the relevant customer service staff to retrieve their first-person perspective recordings from the database and reply officially.
In the official reply posts, these players’ “highlight reels” were pinned on the second floor for other players to watch.
These “highlight reels” were a chaotic mess, featuring blatant aimbotting, 180-degree instant snap-aim, picking off squishy targets from a crowd, and more, leaving spectators in awe.
“Holy crap? And you swear you’re not cheating? If you’re not a cheater, are you an alien?”
“Tsk, this is an insult to the spectators’ intelligence.”
“What were you thinking, coming to the officials for an unban? Didn’t Chen Mo make it crystal clear?”
“You asked for proof, and Chen Mo gave it to you!”
“Cheater! Go hang from a tree!”
“Chen Mo’s move is solid—directly hanging them from a tree for public display and relentlessly beating a dead horse! Everyone, bump these posts up so more people can see the fate of cheaters!”
Soon, these posts were all boosted by players. The front page of the *Overwatch* official forum was filled with “hanging from a tree” posts, all showing players who demanded unbans being proven guilty by video evidence!