Gears of War 2 cheats threatened with gamerscore wipe

By Chris Davies/April 30, 2009 6:50 am EST

Microsoft's Xbox LIVE team are getting strict against those who cheat in Gears of War 2, going as far as to wipe out a player's gamerscore if they are found to have falsified their achievements. The wipe will affect not only Gears of War 2 points but all gaming achievements, and be accompanied by a message on the user's profile explaining that they lost their gamerscore because of cheating.

The decision follows the discovery of a hack in which players can swap their Xbox LIVE profiles with those of another gamer with a high existing gamerscore. If Microsoft's automated system identifies any sign of this, it will reset the gamerscore to zero; the company claim there is no appeals process to get lost points back.

Once caught, gamers will have the opportunity to rebuild their gamerscore legitimately. Microsoft describe this as a belief in "players reforming themselves", though we'd wager it's a nice way to ensure subscriptions continue too, rather than simply banning them.