User-reviews limited to Gold subscribers; Games and devs await permanent ban
Microsoft has corrected vulnerabilities in its ratings system for Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG), after people were found to be unfairly improving the ratings of games.
The firm could also ban developers thought to have abused the system, and remove their product from the store.
“Starting today, only users with Xbox Live Gold subscriptions will be allowed to rate content on the Xbox.com website,” the company said in a statement.
“Violating user agreements may result in actions up to and including banning from Xbox Live, removal of currently posted games, and loss of ability to post games in the future.”
The amendment to its user-review system comes after it was discovered that an organised group of people made dishonestly high and low ratings to some Xbox Live Indie Games.
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At the centre of these claims was indie group Crosse Studios, the creator of XBLIG title College Lacrosse. That studio had asked fans on its Facebook page to improve the user rating of its game.
Those that complied had given the game strong review scores despite not needing to play the title. In turn, the game rose up the ratings charts and gained more prominence on the XBLIG digital storefront.
It is believed, though not proven, that fans were instructed on how to rate games without the need to play.
The impact was that some users went one step further and allegedly rated rival games will low marks – causing their chart ranking to fall and have College Lacrosse leapfrog ahead.
Microsoft said restricting these actions only to people with Xbox Live Gold accounts will give the system “more consistent ratings and a significantly reduced potential for abuse across the entire Xbox catalog”.
The firm had looked into the possibility of nullifying “suspect votes”, though confessed the operation would be implausible without prohibitive levels of work.
“We are investigating users who may have violated their user agreement during this series of events,” Microsoft added.
And it's time to be evil again... Microsoft has success, then starts being evil, people will stop buying their products, Microsoft stops being evil and so it continues.
Hoping gamers see this and ditch Microsoft overall.
Wtf? "microsoft is evil" stopped being something cool to say online in the 1990s. The current trend is google/facebook and privacy. Hippy.
Sort of doesn't work, as if someone sets up a new account, it's automatically gold for two weeks.
Plus, I could never be bothered to vote myself, no incentive and I didn't even know those number meant anything.
@1: So Microsoft is evil, because people abuse the system and they want to stop it happening?!? What's wrong, expecting a ban on the way are we?
If you abuse the system that is supposed to be beneficial to bona fide developers and gamers, then you should be kicked out, permanently.
The only people I can see objecting to that, are people who abuse the system. Which makes me question why you really are objecting to it.
If anything, gamers will welcome it, as it stops the crap getting falsely voted to the top of the charts, so they might actually get genuinely good games there instead.
Quite a pathetic, non-argument you have there, when you think about it.
Why don't the only make you have bought the game? When you have bought the game you can vote. And Microsoft ain't evil.
How the heck is Microsoft Evil? Just think if Microsoft didn't exist would the PC exist then? Without Microsoft there shouldn't be a Xbox. And the only way Xbox got famous was because the have Halo. But there is Microsoft actually evil. Because Bungie was just going to release Halo 1. For Mac, but when it got heard by Mac's Owner and "published" by him on a conference. Microsoft bought Bungie and Halo didn't get published on Mac. And just instead on Xbox/windows.
What I like most about this solution is that they obviously sat down and said, "making a proper solution in a pain. if only there were a switch to flick that would solve the problem. oh, there's one. pretty much does what we want ...-ish? ah, that'll do. Lunch?"
"Just think if Microsoft didn't exist would the PC exist then?"
WOW JUST WOW...
Of course the PC would exist, and perhaps then we might actually have a better operating system with which to video game under. Thanks to DirectX and Winblows PC gaming will always be acting like it is competing in the special olympics.
