Punkbuster wrongly bans Battlefield 3 players, EA working on solution

Alongside legions of actual cheaters, EA's third-party anti-cheating technology, Punkbuster, has apparently been booting innocents from Battlefield 3, a problem the publisher is currently looking into.

"We are investigating an issue of Punkbuster bans that were incorrectly applied to some of our players," reads a statement on EA's official help site. "Please undertstand [sic] that our game advisors are not able to access or overturn Punkbuster bans, but we're working with our partners at Even Balance to get this resolved as quickly as possible."

Even Balance is the developer of Punkbuster, a once-popular anti-cheating program that saw widespread use prior to the advent of Steam and Valve's Anti-Cheat (VAC) software. Since that time, many newer games (including EA's own Titanfall) have opted to use Valve's solution over the comparatively dated Punkbuster. Unfortunately, older games, such as Battlefield 3, remain tied to Punkbuster and its banning protocol which makes it very difficult for even the game's publisher to rescind punishment once a ban has been issued.

[Image: EA]