Player fought unfair ban in CoD for 763 days to save his reputation on Steam
763 days and a court hearing have allowed a Call of Duty player to finally have the ban granted to him by Activision revoked and remove the blemish on the honor of his Steam .
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A Call of Duty player spent 763 days fighting and going through legal processes to restore his reputation and in the popular FPS series.
In December 2023, player b00lin earned his "ban" after playing the beta version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for over 36 hours. At first, he thought it was because he encountered several errors during testing, but after reporting it, Activision kept the blocked.
The player certainly didn't give up, but probably few would go as far. b00lin decided to take legal action and described his story on his website with the very telling name: Antiblizzard.
Activision turned down requests to provide clear proof of "cheating" in Call of Duty by a banned player, citing security reasons (the risk of revealing details about the anti-cheat system). Despite - as b00lin claims - he only asked for "innocent" information like the name of the software used (via PC Gamer).
Top secret evidence not for court
Before the lawsuit, b00lin tried to resolve the matter in other ways, but after the proposal was rejected, the case went to court. First, he managed to recover the money for the game purchase with the help of Money Claim Online (the player won by default because Activision didn't respond to the claim), but his was still blocked.
Later, he attempted a non-monetary claim and a settlement, agreeing to sign a confidentiality agreement in return for covering the proceedings' costs and having his unbanned. When this idea was also rejected by the publisher, the case finally went to court.
In this case, as well, the internet had a lot of work to do, but it resulted in a rich collection of material for the hearing. Meanwhile, Activision's defenders also didn't receive evidence that the player was actually cheating in the game. It seems the company enforces such tight confidentiality regarding the anti-cheat system that even its lawyers were not privy to it.
As a result, the court ordered Activision to reimburse the plaintiff for the court costs and to unban his , which happened on January 8, 2025. The court also ruled that Activision breached the contract with the .
Stain on honor on Steam
The problem wasn't easy to solve. For over 2 years, the player sent countless emails and conducted many conversations over the phone or chat, which required superhuman patience.
It might seem amusing to some that a person is causing such a stir over being banned in a game. However, b00lin in a statement for PC Gamer pointed out two reasons that motivated him to fight. Firstly, he has been a fan of Call of Duty since the beginning of the series, and he has every installment of the series in his collection that has been released since 2003.
Secondly, the ban was also visible on Steam. There is probably no need to explain how other players react to the presence of ban information in the game on a 's page, for instance, when they see that he is doing well in multiplayer. Of course, some aren't bothered by it (and they insist that "it's not about this game, and anyway, I got it for free"), but for b00lina, it was a blemish on the in which he had invested thousands of hours.
Having a Steam profile's reputation ruined after seven years of ownership is what fuelled me to keep going and not give up. A ban for something I did not do on a profile I cherish and have spent thousands of hours on did not sit right.
The player points out that he is not the only person affected in this way. He is even a member of Discord channel for players who received "false" bans. Especially in the form of shadowbans, which poses a major issue, as the system can supposedly be exploited through mass reporting of players.
