Microsoft punishes Gears of War testers after leak

A number of beta testers of a Gears of War remaster who leaked game images have been punished by Microsoft. Those involved would have lost their Xbox Live account; consoles would also be temporarily disabled. Microsoft denies the latter.

The release of a new Gears of War game has been rumored for a month, since a multiplayer beta of the game was said to have been sent to testers. According to Polygon, it is a graphically polished version of the first part of the game series, which came out for the Xbox 360 in 2006. Textures and lighting are said to have been improved, while the renewed game runs at 60 fps instead of the 30 fps of the original. Microsoft bought the rights to the game series from Epic Games in early 2014; the remaster would be developed by Black Tusk Studios of Splash Damage, with new cgi cut scenes from Plastic Wax.

Rumors led to leaked game images earlier this week, allegedly from testers. VMC Games, a company that lets home testers try games on their own consoles before release and was also responsible for the Gears of War test, wrote an email in response to the leaks that came into the hands of Kotaku. In it, the company writes that it wants to draw the attention of its testers to the nda, which forbids testers to talk about their work.

According to the email, several testers recently made a mistake. In one case, a tester shared a screenshot of the game via Snapchat. The receiver, also a tester of VMC, posted it on the internet. Both were barred from further testing. Because the leaked game images came from the Xbox One, the testers also violated Microsoft’s license terms, VMC says in the email. The company would therefore not only have permabanned their Xbox Live accounts. “For a period of time, which Microsoft determines depending on the severity of the violation, they will no longer be able to use their Xbox One at all.”

Asked for a response, Microsoft denies that it can disable consoles remotely. “When a console is banned from Xbox Live for a violation of the terms of use, it can still be used offline,” a spokesperson told Kotaku. However, updates can no longer be installed without an internet connection, so games that require them cannot be played on a banned console. The spokesperson declined to comment further on the statements made in the email.