Microsoft punishes Gamerscore cheaters with public branding

With the battle for high scores comes a high probability of cheating. When it comes to buffing one's Gamerscore on the Xbox 360, though, Microsoft has drawn a line in the sand. Microsoft's Major Nelson has documented the punishment for players caught cheating and it's surprisingly public. Following a recent round of "serious offender" identification, the company has come forth with a set of documented penalties. A cheater will be subject to the following:

• Resetting the entire Gamerscore of an account to zero
• The account will be unable to us any previously obtained achievements, although the players will have the ability to gain future Achievements by earning them fairly, like the majority of the Xbox LIVE community does
• The account will be clearly labeled as a cheater for the community to view on Xbox.com. You can see an example here. In dash, the personal view of the gamercard will be labeled as well

It seems that Microsoft is taking the Gamerscore quite seriously, as a public branding is certainly a way to mar the play experience of the cheater more than a simple banning of the Gamertag would. With the amount of trash talk that goes on during an average game of Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4, I can't even fathom what a room will sound like when one of these cheaters is recognized.