There are many reasons for a gamer to be banned from their account for a long time by the publisher. Usually, this can come from being detected in the act of using hacks and cheats, taking advantage of errors and bugs in the game for profit. Or more rarely, because of the harsh and toxic attitude and behavior in the game. But nowhere is it like Elden Ring, where a gamer recently faced an account ban of up to 180 days just for picking up another player’s dropped item.
Accordingly, recently in a post on Reddit, a gamer with the nickname Ok-Communication7125 and a die-hard fan of Elden Ring had to ask for help from the community because of his tragic situation. One fine day, Ok-Communication7125 picked up an item that another player dropped in their world. Basically, this is a feature that FromSoftware added to Elden Ring to help new players level up, or have useful equipment. But no one expected that to be the seed of instability. And only a short time later, the above gamer’s account was immediately banned.
The reason is also very simple, as explained by the publisher Bandai Namco, the poor gamer owned an item that could only be obtained from hacks and cheats. Of course, it can be easily deduced that it is the same item that Ok-Communication7125 accidentally picked up above. But Bandai Namco did not have time to trace the source, and a penalty was immediately issued. Ok-Communication7125 received an ultimatum with two options. One, the guy must delete 220 hours of experience from the character who picked up the above item. Or else it will be a half-year, 180-day ban on your account.
Of course, if carefully evaluated, this is not the player’s responsibility because obviously, they cannot know whether the items they pick up and exchange are originated from hacking cheats or not. For that reason, many people did not dare to use this feature for fear of falling into a scenario similar to what Ok-Communication7125 experienced. Perhaps FromSoftware and Bandai Namco should improve their anti-hack cheat system before blaming players like the poor gamer in the story above.