Blizzard hit ‘Overwatch’ with a ban wave on March 13, and the numbers are not small. 18,159 accounts got banned, according to OverwatchNaeri, who confirmed the details the next day after getting the information from Blizzard directly. OverwatchNaeri is a former Blizzard Entertainment Korea MVP and is widely considered one of the most reliable sources in the ‘Overwatch’ community when it comes to official news.
A lot of players have said their lobbies feel noticeably cleaner since the wave went through, which suggests most of the bans were hitting actual cheaters. But not everyone is convinced the system got it right. There are players coming forward saying they were banned despite not cheating, and the biggest concern is that Blizzard’s Defense Matrix system is flagging common software that has nothing to do with cheating. That has happened before with ‘Overwatch’ ban waves, and it looks like it might be happening again.
A Support Main Named Flippy Claims His Level 287 Account Got Terminated
One of the more visible cases is a player called Flippy who posted a video about getting his account terminated. Level 287 support main. His response to the ban was, “How was I ever cheating? I’m a support main.”
He said it “took until my account got terminated to actually figure out what went wrong” and started looking through everything on his setup to figure out what could have triggered it. His weekly KD was 1.01 on a new hero, and his recent replays showed average gold level gameplay. Not exactly the stats of someone running cheats.
Flippy went through the programs he has running and brought up his HyperX keyboard and mouse setup specifically. He said he uses “HyperX like keyboard and mouse support with reprogrammable mouse like buttons” along with OBS, Discord, and iCUE. And here is the thing.
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HyperX NGENUITY and other programmable input software have set off false bans in previous ‘Overwatch’ ban waves before. The software talks to the anti-cheat system in a way that looks like an unauthorized program, even though it is not one. When Flippy tried to appeal, Blizzard came back and said “evidence of unauthorized third-party program usage was found” and closed it.
Blizzard Has Not Said Anything About The False Ban Claims
Blizzard has dealt with this before. HyperX NGENUITY and similar software have triggered the anti-cheat in past ban waves, and it looks like the same issue came back around with this one. Players who use programmable keyboards and mice are frustrated because the software they need for their peripherals is getting them flagged, and Blizzard is not making any distinction between that and actual cheat programs. The appeal process is not helping either, since Flippy’s case got shut down immediately.
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As of now, Blizzard has not commented on the false ban claims at all. The 18,159 number is out there, and most of the community seems to agree that the wave was needed. But for the players who got swept up in it without doing anything wrong, they do not really have a way to get their accounts back. Blizzard’s response to Flippy was the same generic line about unauthorized software, and that was the end of it.
