When Ubisoft released an update last week for the FPS game The Division, they added a new mission called Falcon Lost, which would reward players who finished the mission with special high-level loot. According to GameSpot, Falcon Lost, a raid where players fought against enemy waves, was meant to be difficult, rewarding players with the special gear once a week. But a glitch in the game involving riot shields and portable cover allowed players to access the mission area multiple times to get the rewards easier and more often.
The video below shows how the glitch works:
While most professionally developed
games have a few bugs upon release, many players and developers understand that
this is just part of the gaming process. Most often the players will make the
glitch known through forums or videos, and the developers will create patches
to update and fix these issues. It is a relationship of feedback and
response.
However, Ubisoft has added a controversial new step to the process: punishment. To the protest of many, Ubisoft announced last Friday that they were investigating the glitch in the game but were also "looking into what can be done to punish those who have exploited [the glitch]."
Many players did not react well to the news, complaining liberally on the game forum about how they should not be punished for what they claim was a developer mistake. They reasoned that people were exploiting a glitch that existed within the game's coding and not some hack that had been installed from a separate source.
"If you don’t want players exploiting bugs in order to achieve personal gain, well, pay more attention to that kind of bugs . . . and do something about them before releasing the game," said forum user Matotano.
Still, others stood up for Ubisoft, claiming that players who used the glitch to gain more than the intended amount of high-level items were in the wrong; because they broke the rules, these players deserve some sort of consequence.
"So if you see a cash box left out in the open, and you take money out of it, that's not stealing...Wrong... the person that did it was wrong, and steps should be taken to keep that from happening," said user AintMybaby.
And
Ubisoft's Code of Conduct does indeed
state, "Exploitation of any new or known issues or bugs is forbidden and
may result in account suspension or revocation." Here, the
language clearly addresses the issue at hand and the possible consequences. But
some players have argued that many people are not aware of the Code of Conduct
because they were never informed one existed.
Forum user AllStarC4llerz said, "I have never read the terms, theyre never referenced in the game, Im never warned anywhere." I myself played open beta for The Division, and I do not remember reading a code of conduct or being asked to read one before playing the game (though I cannot say whether it is different for the full version of the game.)
At this point, Ubisoft has still not fixed the bugs, nor have they announced what would happen to the players who exploited the wall glitch. Whether they ban them permanently, suspend them, or just take away the drops they gained from the bug, the decision is ultimately up to the company. But what they decide will affect their reputation in the gaming community.
