Blizzard has banned more than 10,000 Overwatch accounts in Korea as part of a crackdown on cheating.
According to a forum post from the Overwatch team in Korea — translated by VentureBeat — the bans are part of an effort to eradicate a particular form of cheating known as "nuking." Players commonly overwhelm opponents with denial-of-service DDOS attacks, severely impacting their online connections.
"Creating and delivering a pleasant game environment for the majority of our rule-abiding players is of paramount importance to us,” states the post, according to VentureBeat. “We are committed to taking all the steps we can to stop players who create, distribute, and use these nuking programs.”
However, the bans are unlikely to entirely block nuking in Korea, where Overwatch is commonly played as a free-to-play game in internet cafes.
Blizzard has been ruthless in its attempts to stamp out cheating, slapping bans on wayward players since the game launched last year. Overwatch is especially popular in Korea, where it beat out long-term internet cafe favorite League of Legends last summer.