I play Halo 2 off and on with Phil and some others, and while fun in small groups, it gets quickly annoying when playing with random people online who invariably are 15 year old annoying idiots.  These guys (and yes, they're almost all guys) typically play several hours a day, yet hang out on the training ground levels where they get to play against us casual gamers.  Invariably they beat us, after which they scream stupid comments.  An example:  after beating Phil and I at one team game, they saw that Phil's screen name is "D3LTAF0RC3", so one proceeded to scream out, "DeltaForce?!  Well I am OMEGAForce!" in this high-pitched voice.

Anyway, Bungie, the company behind Halo, has begun really cracking down on banning these idiots who are making us other players - who they rely on for the bread-and-butter casual purchases - not want to play anymore.  Last month they were asked "What exactly is cheating, and what isn't?" to which they posted this funny response:

Any and all mods, hacks, and artificially modified game profiles used on Live (which potentially includes playing on System Link while connected - the whole "Live Aware" thing) will be treated the same way - as cheats. We don't support the devices or software used to make these hacks, and so we have no obligation to supporting their use. They are and have been used for cheating, and since there's no way for us to tell if they're being used for innocent or nefarious purposes, we are nuking ALL instances and banning them from matchmaking. SO DON'T USE THEM. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Not to be confused with regular game saves, where you've made a custom game type using Halo 2's built-in interface. Those are fine and we can easily tell the difference.

"Boosting" - manipulating your way up the leaderboards with the help of other players or techniques = banned. It IS cheating. Those doing it know it is cheating, and more to the point, it is purposeless. You are not proving you're better than other players, in fact, you're showing that you simply don't have the skill or ability to compete. Which makes you suckaz. It's also very easy for us to detect, so don't do it or you're banned. And you may be banned today anyway for a prior history of Boosting. This is a temporary 7 day suspension to give you one last chance to quit it so don't bother whining to me about it. I DON'T CARE. YOU CHEATED. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS. And if your "little brother" did it, take it up with him, not us. Oh dear, my Caps Lock is acting up to day. MONKEYS!!!! After the seven day suspension ends, you can try playing properly. Do it again and there will be more permanent penalties. Don't like it? Call a "waaaaah-mbulance."

Other forms of cheating, betrayals, constant quitting when losing, hiding bombs, will also be treated as cheating and continue to be dealt with using the feedback system and YOU WILL BE BANNED TOO.

Being an idiot online? Cursing continually? Making threats? Being a racist jackass? BANNED. Oh and a word to screamers – BANNED. Anyone who so much as looks at ME funny on Live? BANNED. Synonym for a group of musicians? BAND. Things are going to get a lot tighter around here. We have more tools and better awareness, and all you have to do to avoid being BANNED is QUIT BEING AN IDIOT. You're not funny. You're not clever. You're a boring loser and people hate you.

Look, most of you know what cheating is, so quit asking stupid questions about it, or acting indignant because there is a bug in the game that you felt obliged to exploit. YOU ARE CHEATING. We don't even owe you this explanation. The only reason we bother is so that we can go back and say look, we told you this was cheating and you're BANNED so shut up. And I hope you get boils. And I hope the boils are full of acid-spewing spiders that burst out and hump your face.

It really reminds me of when Phil and I ran a BBS in High School, where I would ban anyone who would post any comment slightly disparaging against us or our system.  Then they would have their friends send Phil a whiny message about how their friend was banned without a warning, etc.  Whatever.  It was our system, our time, our phone line, our cost, and if they didn't like it, we didn't want them there.