Apparently, Temtem has borrowed a bit more from Pokemon than just its overall vibe: It’s also borrowing the elder franchise’s reputation for attracting the cheaty cheatersons of the world. Early this morning, Crema announced that it had banned 900 players permanently for intentionally cheating and/or exploiting in the early access MMO. Controversy erupted, however, over the studio’s plans to refuse appeals.
“We just completed our first batch of banned users. Almost 900 players have been permanently banned from Temtem. Bans are final, we won’t answer or review any ban appeal. We’ve made 100% sure that every banned user is either a cheater or has abused exploits intentionally. […] The team spent all morning checking banned accounts and player accounts saying ‘they didn’t do anything illegal’. We re-checked over 100 accounts. Every single one of them was a legit ban. […] Don’t trust cheaters. They just want to know more info about the ban in order to avoid it next time they’re using cheats. They will lie about everything in order to get more info and the minimal possibility of getting unbanned.”
But hours later, Crema apparently reversed that decision, citing players’ feedback.
We've decided to review ban appeals, even though every single one of the ones we checked are legit. Like you said, having a "no appeal" policy is not good.
So, you can contact us on support@cremagames.com
Put "Ban appeal" as the subject and include your ingame ID or username.
— Temtem 🏰 ARBURY OUT NOW!! (@PlayTemtem) February 3, 2020
The situation recalls one of the larger MMO cheating messes of the last few years: In 2018, ArenaNet banned a wave of Guild Wars 2 players it claimed it had identified as cheaters, using what players characterized as invasive cheat-detection spyware. But in January of 2019, a determined player in Europe was able to successfully invoke GDPR to force ArenaNet to turn over his data, which he then used to clear his name and force reinstatement and compensation for others who had been demonstrably wrongly accused and banned.
Of course, that’s no guarantee any of the 900 people banned will be cleared and reinstated in Temtem, only a reminder that studios make mistakes too.
