Cheating and harassment reports

TheTiredGmr · Nov 23, 2021

Hi everyone.

I was curious as to how quickly Xbox is to respond to cheating and harassment reports, especially if you have evidence. Unfortunately, I've been getting attacked by a group of haters on multiple platforms, not just Xbox Live. I understand that while Xbox/Microsoft can't do anything about the other platforms (Reddit for example) I would expect them to take cheating and harassment seriously, even more so with proof if it happens while using Xbox Live services in online multiplayer games.

The harassment has been going on to the point of a couple of months now. I've had to change all communication and settings on Xbox Live to private to avoid harassment. These messages have ranged from calling me names that I won't include here - to telling me to delete my YouTube channel.

The harassment has happened from a couple of different accounts. I know for certain two particular players who have continued to harass me for a few months now. One of them even dedicated a stream to hunting my gamertag (intentional targeting/stalking)

Another member of their squad has harassed me on multiple social media platforms and I do have proof of targeting by them both. I won't say what the sources are, but they make it clear what their intentions were at the time.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to talk the players out of harassing me because of their continued behavior. One of them got banned on Reddit by the moderators of the subreddit for the game we both play. With the evidence of both harassment and cheating in game, how quickly should it take Xbox to take action on those players? We're not talking one instance of cheating, but multiple instances of cheating and harassment in game. I reported them both on Sunday during a live chat with an Xbox agent.

Thanks.

:)

NA234

Yeah, I've been in direct contact with an actual dev on the team for the company who made the game. Unfortunately, even with proof, they didn't do anything because support for the game was cut.

Nursemorph

Well, it depends on the Developer and the game....in the case of something like Forza Horizon, the Leaderboards give a clear example of it. Playground were aware of the cheating and hacking through the entire life of FH4 and did nothing. And their in-game reporting tool doesn't actually do anything beyond giving the player a placebo effect from having pressed a button.

When a 1st Party Developer owned by Microsoft/Xbox basically gives cheats and hackers permission (by taking no action) to do what they like within the game, then it makes you wonder why there are codes of conduct in the first place. Not to mention, if MS/Xbox don't care (and if they did then they'd make sure their own Developers abided by MS/Xbox's policies and they don't), then why should other Developers etc?

Nursemorph

Yeah, I can imagine how demoralising it is to feel like you are talking to a brick wall when it comes to dealing with harassment....I am lucky that I have never had to deal with it

Unfortunately, there's no easy answer here...whilst there may be clear eveidence of it on youTube, contrary to the CS agent, Enforcement will not accept 3rd party evidence as proof (unless I am wrong on that somewhere or they have recently changed things).

This is the issue that comes up a lot when it comes to targeted harassment within games: Whilst games do use the Xbox Live Service for the Gamertag etc, unless any harassment is directly on the XBL service (such as messages, party etc), then Xbox can't do anything about it as games are moderated by the Developers/Publishers.

In your case, as you said, the developers stopped supporting the game so they won't take action...frankly, a lot of supported games do nothing to get rid of this sort of behaviour. Forza Horizon 5 has clear evidence of cheating and even hacking yet the Developer (Playground Games) does nothing about it even though it's a Microsoft owned Studio...when a 1st party studio does nothing, it kind of implies that Xbox/MS don't care about this sort of thing, so why should other developers?

Nursemorph

The problem you have here, far as I can tell, is , whilst it is happening in games that use Xbox Live, this harassment isn't actually happening on XBox Live?

Microsoft will only take action on anything that specifically happens on Xbox Live and only accepts evidence from within the system.

The "reported them both on Sunday during a live chat with an Xbox agent." will likely do nothing as, far as I am aware, the only way to report players is via the Report function on Xbox Live.

As this sounds like it is happening within games, then the game developer themselves would need to be the ones to notify as they moderate their own servers

NA234

Hi again.

The harassment on Xbox Live in messages was a while back, but the targeting continues to happen and the only evidence I have of it recently are videos from their YouTube channels which are recorded clips or videos made in game while they are playing on the Xbox Live service and targeting my gamertag specifically.

As for the cheating, the Devs cut support for the game and even speaking to one of them personally (they were kind enough to reach out to me on Twitter) they shortly ghosted me after I showed them proof of said cheating and targeting) and nothing was ever resolved going directly through the developers for the game.

I'm just at the point where I'm sick and tired of the harassment going one for so long. They are Xbox gamers, I have proof of their gamertags targeting me in game and cheating but the only proof of the targeting and cheating in game is from YouTube videos on their channels. One user even includes that their YouTube channel is the same name as their Xbox gamertag in the about me section on YouTube.

The rep who did answer my live chat did give me a file to include proof of links where it showed the targeting and cheating, but I'm not so sure that's going to help now.

All I know is that it doesn't feel like major companies have a desire to assist with ending harassment and this type of behavior anymore. Really disappointed.

Cheating and harassment reports