“We sincerely apologize for this situation and want to assure you that we will not ban players who play honestly and without cheating,” NetEase said. Disagreement statement reads, perhaps not in the kind of language I would use if I were banning only players who play honestly and without cheating. It continues: “We have identified the specific reasons behind these false bans and compiled a list of affected players. We have lifted these bans and would like to sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.”
Proof that justice can be served just as effectively by apologetic executives as vigilante super-soldiers and/or sentient trees. I haven’t played Marvel Rivals – Ed’s review would have put me off even if I hadn’t had enough hero shooters yet – but I do notice that Valve has reviewed it Playable for the Steam Deckso from that alone the number of wrongly convicted SteamOS players could have been significant.
Proton, the specific compatibility layer that integrates SteamOS, has an earlier form for enabling certain anti-cheat systems, although in the early days of The Deck this was more due to a simple lack of software compatibility than any genuine concerns about Proton’s potential unreliability . Yet the prospect of exposing games to the indomitable, open-source Linux still deters some developers. For example, Fortnite has never worked on SteamOS and Apex Legends recently dropped support due to possible cheating concerns.
Fair play to NetEase for refraining from such a heavy-handed approach, even if you do I still can’t name Winnie the Pooh in his chat.