Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 ban policy detailed

You're reading this from a lawnchair outside your favourite video games retailer, where you've been camped out for a week awaiting the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. But wait! When that shiny box is in your hands and you rush home for your happiest moment of this year, take care that you don't get carried away and do something regrettable, or it'll be all tears at bedtime. Treyarch has laid out its ban policy, is what I'm saying.

The list of offenses is entirely predictable, including the usual hacking, piracy, colluding to farm XP, glitching outside maps, being abusive, and creating naughty emblems.

Most naughtiness starts off with a small punishment for the first offense, like having your stats reset or a temporary ban from 48 hours to 2 weeks, but the especially ill-behaved may be permabanned or reported to the platform holder for extra punishment.

Curiously, the rules for Cod Blops 2's new built-in YouTube livestreaming includes not only being offensive but also showing "unauthorized content" like "unlicensed music, TV shows, movies and brand logos." While one would hope it's there only to stop people pointing their webcam at a movie while they stream, it seems potentially open to unpleasant corporate crackdown.

Look, it is all common sense, but now people can't claim they had no idea that glitching outside a map to shoot all the men unseen was punishable, all right? Swearing blind that your brother was playing on your account probably won't get you off the hook, either.