Blizzard: Diablo III users not being banned for using Linux

Blizzard has denied charges of banning Linux users from playing Diablo 3 for using Wine, and has said that all bans were a result of cheating.

Yesterday, a thread was created on the official Diablo III forums entitled "Banning Linux users for using Linux... really?" and several users posted there claiming that they have been banned for using Wine - software for Linux users which allows them to run Windows-based programs.

The game's troubleshooting site put up a official statement regarding this, "Although our games are often playable on a lot of unsupported hardware and software configurations, these same setups will often block the system survey from completing its job."

This lead some people to believe that these "unsupported software and hardware" might be creating problems for the game's anti-cheat system, resulting in people using them being banned.

However, Blizzard issued a statement rubbishing such claims:

"We've extensively tested for false positive situations, including replicating system setups for those who have posted claiming they were banned unfairly. We've not found any situations that could produce a false positive, have found that the circumstances for which they were banned were clear and accurate, and we are extremely confident in our findings."

"Playing the game on Linux, although not officially supported, will not get you banned - cheating will."

When forums users demanded more insight regarding the matter, the community manager posted the following, "It's company policy not to discuss account actions with anyone but the account holder, or their legal guardian if applicable. It's an issue between us and them. Trust me, it'd be much easier on me to just post exactly what they did, but we feel it's important to honor the privacy of our customers, and that's a policy I personally agree with."

This suggests that Blizzard had more than valid reasons for banning certain people, and it had nothing to do with them playing on Linux.

Thanks, Eurogamer.