It seems that many feel that taking advantage of exploits in games to get ahead isn’t cheating. Bungie feels otherwise, as they swiftly handed out punishment to over 15,000 Halo: Reach players that took advantage of the game glitch to gain additional credits in the game.

Bungie verified the existence of the glitch and figured out a way to trace and isolate the behavior to verify those that were taking advantage of the exploit. Once Bungie could verify the behavior, they dealt with those not playing by the rules by wiping the in-game credits obtained in this manner.

Over 15,000+ players that exploited the glitch for gain within the game had their in-game credits wiped. Bungie warns in a forum post that they are not fooled by claims of innocence by those affected, and they proceeded cautiously to make sure that they could eliminate potential false positives before taking action. Apparently, this is just a first pass, as the game’s automated banhammer will be dealing with those who continue to cheat once it is able to satisfy Bungie’s burden of proof requirements.

The moral of this story never changes, and that is that cheating just isn’t worth it. Bungie, like many developers, are creating titles with much more sophisticated mechanisms to detect and deal with cheating, and we expect these technologies to continue to get even better. It just isn’t worth the risk, and we suggest that you think twice before taking advantage of exploits within your games; or rest assured that punishment will be handed out to you at some point.