A friend of mine tweeted this image shortly ago. It shows someone’s ban message from XBox Live. It’s a common message to see when you’re banned for piracy. Problem is, this guy (allegedly) wasn’t pirating anything. He was playing his legitimate copy of Grand Theft Auto 5. So how would that get him banned?

In the gaming world there are release dates, and most of the time even though a particular game seller will get copies early, they’re not permitted to put it on sale until said release date. Amazon, however, began shipping their copies of GTA5 over the weekend. XBox Live, seeing people having played a game that isn’t out yet, seems to be auto-flagging for piracy, and banning accounts. 

This is another example of innocent end users being punished for crappy DRM systems. Another reason why people aren’t thrilled about the XBox One’s almost-always-on DRM shit.

Anyway. Just wanted to share.