Upcoming Call of Duty Has Annoying Phone Number Verification Requirement (theverge.com) 167
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II will require players to register with a phone number on Battle.net to play the game, in order to make players responsible for their actions. The game is set for release later this month on October 28th. The Verge reports: It's a repeat of the practice that caused issues for Overwatch 2 players last week, PCGamer reports. A Battle.net support page lists the upcoming CoD shooter as one of its three games that "require that you add a phone number to your Battle.net account" to play, alongside Overwatch 2 and 2019's Modern Warfare. The phone verification system, which Activision Blizzard calls SMS Protect, is meant to cut down on toxic behavior from players, preventing them from creating endless new accounts to evade bans or to cheat. "Limiting the number of free accounts that a single person can create helps keep players accountable for their actions and, in turn, reduces toxicity and cheating and ensures a positive community experience for all players," Activision Blizzard's support page reads.
The problem is that SMS Protect is designed for text-enabled mobile phones, and doesn't treat all phone numbers equally. A separate Battle.net support page notes that "mobile phones with prepaid plans may not work with the phone notification service." It also doesn't work with VoIP numbers. That restricts the service to players with postpaid cellular plans, which may not be affordable or easily accessible to many players around the world.
Requiring players to provide a phone number isn't new (Dota 2 and Rainbow Six Siege both require them for ranked play) but there haven't been widespread reports of problems with prepaid phone plans with these previous implementations. One player we spoke to was blocked from playing Overwatch 2 when they entered the same number they'd used to successfully play Dota 2 for years. It's unclear whether Activision Blizzard's phone number requirements will apply equally for Modern Warfare II players across both Battle.net and Steam, given the game is available across both PC digital stores.
The problem is that SMS Protect is designed for text-enabled mobile phones, and doesn't treat all phone numbers equally. A separate Battle.net support page notes that "mobile phones with prepaid plans may not work with the phone notification service." It also doesn't work with VoIP numbers. That restricts the service to players with postpaid cellular plans, which may not be affordable or easily accessible to many players around the world.
Requiring players to provide a phone number isn't new (Dota 2 and Rainbow Six Siege both require them for ranked play) but there haven't been widespread reports of problems with prepaid phone plans with these previous implementations. One player we spoke to was blocked from playing Overwatch 2 when they entered the same number they'd used to successfully play Dota 2 for years. It's unclear whether Activision Blizzard's phone number requirements will apply equally for Modern Warfare II players across both Battle.net and Steam, given the game is available across both PC digital stores.
Are they gonna let pre-paid phone users in? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not like a PS4 or PC that can run COD is pricy. Lots of broke ass people's only pleasure is video games. They're *cheap*. I can score a used PS4 for $150 bucks, hook it up to a $50/mo internet connection and I'm set (and no, $50/mo is not a lot of money, old fogies here on
I know, I know, go play another game. But if you're friend groups on COD and you're left out because you hit hard times that ****ing sucks.
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Get better friends! :D
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The VOIP number I have for SMS doesn't work either on some sites.
Since I don't follow games much since crysis I guess, I thought this was a dupe. Are we going to get a Slashdot article for every game and site that requires a cell phone and rejects pre-paid and VOIP phone numbers?
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COD is the biggest modern game franchise outside of Pokemon (and I guess Tetris and Mario, though i wouldnt count either as exactly "modern" as products of the 80s). Its not just "any game".
As the 700lb gorilla in the room, what COD does affects the entire industry.
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Or stick with your principles, vote with your wallet, and refuse to purchase the game with these restrictions. If sales tank because of this feature, it will quickly be removed.
If everyone just whines, knuckles under, and accepts this "DRM via SMS" then you have nobody to blame but yourselves.
--
Square Enix removing Denuvo software [nme.com]
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I have been using pre-paid AT&T for many, many years. It's cheap and reliable. I buy a new phone outright every so often and transfer the SIM, it has always worked.
I also have it in my Battle.net account and it works as an SMS protect number for other Blizzard games. I have never, and will never play CoD though, so YMMV.
Re:Are they gonna let pre-paid phone users in? (Score:5, Informative)
but locking out the pre-paid phone users was a dick move.
This "phone number discrimination" is nuts and really ought to be made just outright Illegal as it would be already Illegal for a regulated Telecom to refuse to route/accept traffic to/from numbers "because it's linked to a carrier POP believed to be serving VoIP", etc, and breaks things for a ton of people, Especially people who for whatever reason want or have to be on a different phone service than the majority..
First of all they really have no idea what type of Phone you actually have from the number, because Phone numbers can be ported from the provider originally assigned.
All they CAN be doing, basically, is know what provider the number was originally allocated for and pay a service to query the LRN database+NPAC which exist for the sole purpose of directing providers how to route a call and bill, as well whether it's Landline or Mobile..
These databases exist to support call routing and only identify whether a number is "Landline" or "Mobile" - Not for the purpose of identifying extraneous details about a phone number like what "Kind of service" it is.
There is No "Prepaid" flag - A phone's billing plan has nothing to do with the routing, and there's nothing to query in the database to say a Line is Prepaid or VoIP; They are clearly assuming numbers routed to certain carriers' phone service providers' phone switches (Network Id) are VoIP, And some of the largest providers may Discriminate against VoIP and Prepaid by servicing those numbers on different equipment (Different Network Ids)
But there's not Officially a distinction. Various carriers provide BOTH VoIP and traditional POTS or both Postpaid and Prepaid off the same switch or network Id, and then there's no way to even tell the difference. Thus they're probably end up blacklisting a Lot of Legitimate mobile numbers as "VoIP", because they don't care and just call it all VoIP if there's a chance that it might be, And the Network databases were never intended to be used to facilitate something this crazy as discrediting some phone numbers - Which are functionally the same as any other phone number.. A VoIP phone number does not fail to be a phone number: And It should be noone else's business what kind of technology they utilize to connect and access their phone service, other than the customer and the customer's service provider.
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A lot of sites refuse to accept a google voice number, on the basis that it could be used for dodging identity verification. Except mine is associated with my google account, which is associated with my name, which means that it's actually better tied to my identity than my phone.
My phone is prepaid, the VZ $35/mo plan is more than adequate for my needs. So a lot of these fucks won't accept it anyway.
Lucky for me I care less and less about online play, because I don't enjoy hanging out with griefers.
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The fact a phone number is post paid or pre paid is an accounting distinction, unrelated to the type of connection or number.
Exactly... It is Unnecessary, superfluous, causes problems, And does not help with what they're trying to do.
Prepaid numbers require Identification to get these days just like Popstpaid.
Not only that but "Postpaid" phone users can still recycle their numbers - probably even Faster than prepaid users... As long as the customer is willing to pay for an extra line, that can s
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It's unnecessary for what they want to do anyway. It costs players money to get those numbers, and all the "free" SMS services will quickly have all their numbers used up by trolls. That's enough to discourage bad behaviour and make prepaid/VOIP a largely non-functional work-around.
Re:Are they gonna let pre-paid phone users in? (Score:5, Funny)
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You even went to the trouble of looking up some statistics to try and justify what you said and put the mods off track. You've got to know that the reason poor people have a lot of kids is because they don't have access to birth control and they have patriarchal societies that limit women's options and turn them into baby factories. Also they tend to try to have a lot of kids becau
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Poor people having lots of babies seems to be a dog whistle to disparage blacks in the USA. (based on some trolly replies). Sorry I was not sufficiently clued in.
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Further the general public needs people who notice the dog whistles and expose them.
In India poverty and bigger families exist in all religious, linguistic, caste-based groups, so it has not been politicized,
Let me hastily add, "yet".
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Didn't seem mean spirited to me...?
Re: Are they gonna let pre-paid phone users in? (Score:2)
Morality is a rather recent development in the human world, and it's widely interpreted differently by different people. Before that it wad bloody tooth and claw, kill or be killed.
Re: Are they gonna let pre-paid phone users in? (Score:2)
Actually, it still very much is bloody tooth and claw, only now you have people justifying what they did with "morality", and the ones who sing the hymns the loudest in church and then go and rob their own grandmother.
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I disagree. The physical realities of our universe impose a certain form of morality.
And societies usually corrupt natural morality rules, to the point where they become almost entirely artificial.
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Closer to home, I've noticed that homeless women have mobile phones and sexual lubricant but not condoms: It's not always a matter of cost, it's a matter of education and lifestyle, and the priorities that brings.
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You're making me wonder.
Homeless people sometimes sleep in an alley near my work: I see smashed phones, fast-food wrappers, cigarette butts, lubricant wrappers but not condom wrappers.
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Homeless people sometimes sleep in an alley near my work:
That's a hell of a sample size.
Re: Are they gonna let pre-paid phone users in? (Score:2)
I've seen quite a few smashed and abandoned phones including an iphone 6 just about a week ago in areas homeless people are known to frequent. But smartphones are very inexpensive compared to 10 years ago.
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Obviously not. That would defeat the purpose. Why is this question even asked? It is dumb.
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Mom's prepaid Tracphone also did text messages.
I think Verizon Fios Digital voice counts as VOIP - but do they e
fuck blizzard (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if this shit worked (it doesn't) does anyone really believe that banning a 15 year old's phone number for LIFE from an videogame is an appropriate and proportionate response and that this isn't just a scam to extract phone numbers from customers?
Blizzard. From the bottom of my heart: Go. Fuck. Your. Self.
ban 867-5309! (Score:3)
ban 867-5309!
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But Jenny....
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I doubt it's them. (Score:3)
Don't forget they're soon to be Mickeysoft. They're already a corporate money zombie, neither Blizzard nor Activision have resembled their original selves for well over a decade.
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that this isn't just a scam to extract phone numbers from customers?
Not in Europe. The GDPR forbids using data collected for other purposes than stated. And they will not get permission from the players for other purposes. They may try though.
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"Vaguely labelled boxes" are invalid by the GDPR, as are 200 boxes. The designers of the GDPR are not stupid. If Blizzard does something like this, then they will effectively have not gotten consent.
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That's debatable...
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Not if you a) actually have some on-target knowledge about IT and privacy and b) actually have looked at what the GDPR means. Seriously.
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They are labeled in perfect legalese that any GDPR lawyer could easily read. What exactly is your problem?
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They are labeled in perfect legalese that any GDPR lawyer could easily read. What exactly is your problem?
There is no "my problem" here. The GDPR requires _informed_ consent. That means whatever a lawyer could understand is completely irrelevant. What instead counts is what a regular, fully functioning person at the lower end of the intelligence and education spectrum can still understand with the effort they are likely to invest. GDPR waivers have to be very clear and concise to be effective. No legalese, obfuscation, nebulous language, etc., because if you do that, a court could easily find all consent given
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Yes, I deleted that data, pinky swear.
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Seriously? You know what happens and has happened already to companies that try that?
Re: fuck blizzard (Score:2)
Well hearing some of the foul and graphic tantrums coming from those kids with explicit verbal content that is shocking even in this day and age, I can see why they are banned in this manner. The little tyke will then learn why it's not a good idea to threaten across state lines to kill and rape the other player's family and burn that person's house down.
They should also ban the parents' streaming service accounts for raising a kid to become a potential and psychotic mass murderer.
Unsorry that this is the u
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Lifetime bans will get them into trouble when the phone number is recycled.
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Chain reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
- First, they will ask you for a phone number.
- Then, they will define their own rules of what is considered acceptable behaviour, which in practice means adults being bound by silly rules of children-safe policies.
- Then, they will punish you from any deviation of the rules, and while doing so they will lock you out of the entire account, including all your other games.
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The big problem comes when you buy games which require online play to play parts of them. If you expect to really own a game, don't buy games like that. I "bought" GTAV knowing that it would have a lot of the game available only when internet connected and it definitely has still sucked. Sometimes the game just doesn't bother to connect, nor will it fail. This is the kind of quality I have come to expect from R*, but it still rankles.
then they will get an big change back for each gam (Score:2)
then they will get an big change back for each game that you lose access to
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Already happened [wikipedia.org] in 2019.
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- First, they will ask you for a phone number.
- Then, they will define their own ethical rules of who they are allowed to sell that phone number to.
-Then they will ignore those rules and sell your number to whoever has cash.
- Then, they will deny that they sold your phone number
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It is already crap. They really need a kick ban system that gives people an way out of teams that don't mesh. Currently the way the blizzard system is set up, even before the phone number requirement, is that you are expected to keep your mouth shut if you are on a team where people refuse to play for the team. You have no way out of that situation. You can't quit without eventually getting penalized. You can't talk smack to the asshats that refuse to play for the team without getting a ban, and you can't k
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- First, they will ask you for a phone number.
- Then, they will define their own rules of what is considered acceptable behaviour, which in practice means adults being bound by silly rules of children-safe policies.
- Then, they will punish you from any deviation of the rules, and while doing so they will lock you out of the entire account, including all your other games.
Of course, that's the entire point, duh - keeping users responsible. If you don't want to behave responsibly, that's great, just don't expect to keep access to their games and to be able to continue ruining the games for others. It's great. FINALLY.
Re: Chain reaction (Score:2)
Glad my heyday of gaming is over.
My crystal ball says in 20 years all games will be video stream only and you will be banned because someone does not like your face. Bye by mods, bye bye anything that falls out of the overseers' vision of the user experience.
And welcome back, says the big mainframe. You may submit your punch card deck to the operator, and pray he or she does not lose or mangle your deck as you wait 5 hours for the printout from your program.
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...high end, popular hangouts for social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Truth Social...
One of those things is not like the other. Great joke though. V funny.
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Yet another reason not to be on social media.
Thankfully, I've never found a reason to join onto one or any of those listed.
Sandbox from hell (Score:4, Insightful)
IMHO, modern games have become unplayable for competitive adults. Game creators currently care more about having child-safe, play-nice environments which can bring them profit while keeping them out of trouble with media and/or regulators, than the actual enjoyment of the game by players.
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I actually own all parts of Larry on GoG.
Google Voice (Score:2)
Google Voice can send and receive text messages.
I think I just found a way around their incredibly well thought-out "security".
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Re: Google Voice (Score:2)
"I just came up with a brilliant work around for the phone number block!"
\_'_'_/
"Ha ha, our team thought of everything!"
[ACCESS DENIED]
X_X
So, yeah.... :-\
"in order to make...." (Score:2)
Ha!
Players who want to be irresponsible will just sign up a burner number and if they are called out on anything, they will discontinue the number and get a new one.
In practice, the only thing that this additional contact information will be used for is as a new vector for later marketing efforts.
Also, even *if * they somehow promised to not use the info in that way (a promise I would view with great skepticism), by having that contact info, that is more
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I think you may want to hone your reading comprehension skills a little. The article says that they are going to attempt to filter out burner phone numbers. Carriers usually have separate, pre-allocated ranges for pre-paid and paid-monthly customers and these ranges are very easy to find online.
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"Please, Mr. Telco, I get harrassed by bullies, give me a new phone number".
Doesn't work in your country? Works great here.
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Yeah, it says that. It's bullshit.
There is no technical way for them to tell that some arbitrary number that they are sending a SMS message is associated with a prepaid account without at least involving the cellular network provider that person deals with What incentive do cell providers have to cooperate with Blizzard?
Re: "in order to make...." (Score:2)
"Hmm, it seems you have a lot of abusive players (not really) who signed up to our (insanely popular) service using your allocated numbers, and it's become so much of a problem that they are switching to your competitor because we have blanket banned your allocated #s. But we are willing to make a deal with you..."
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How to take toxic players from Blizzard (Score:2)
1. Shut down the company
2. Congrats on the accomplishment
Seriously though, with competition comes the cheaters, the toxic players and the pay-on-the-side-to-win players. Somewhere in between the majority of those bad apples there are some trying to have fun, playing closed games with friends and away of public eyes. And those are the few ones that would miss the game. All others would just migrate to another platform to resume the cycle of being cheaters, toxic and more cash than skill to burn.
Re: How to take toxic players from Blizzard (Score:2)
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Its wild that you think "Adult" means OK with some deranged 14 year old calling me a "fag" or whatever.
Heres my "how to be an adult on the internet" test;- What would be the outcome of the thing your about to say online being said in a crowded bar. If that thing is likely to lead someone to push your teeth into the back of your neck, then no its probably not an OK thing to say on the internet either.
Because I actually dont define "adult on the internet" as perpetual adolescence.
Re: How to take toxic players from Blizzard (Score:2)
You forgot
3. Suddenly lock out the employees from the office building next work day morning and mail them a $5 coupon for Arby's
4. Take the money and run, or take all of the copper wiring and run (depending on how much profit made)
Mobile number recycling is a thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Mobile networks get allocated a specific range/prefix of phone numbers. What some people don't realise is that phone numbers which are not used for a while get disconnected and eventually recycled, put back into the pool of available numbers. Many times, these numbers are still linked to the previous owner's accounts. A quick Google search tells me that in the US alone carriers recycle about 100 000 numbers a year. It is therefore not that uncommon to get allocated a recycled number.
If other online services follow suit and the trend to require a mobile number accelerates, we may end up with mobile number pools being exhausted way faster due to desperate users trying to find a phone which is not banned with a particular service, and the chance of getting X different online accounts to work on the same number may become equivalent to winning a lottery jackpot.
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Blizzard will know that and will have some way to deal with that in place. Probably wioll not work that well initially, but there is no way they are not prepared for this in some way.
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You really think that? How many things in history have been implemented without even remotely pondering the implications? And I'm not talking about trivial shit like computer games here, from water rationing that led to more water consumption to the infamous bird killing spree in China that led to more pests killing crops instead of fewer seeds being eaten by birds.
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You really think that?
Yes. Because they know it is controversial and they know it must work to be allowed to stay in place. For example, they will have gotten independent evaluation for this.
Re: Mobile number recycling is a thing (Score:2)
I have a separate phone for work and the number assigned to that phone belonged to someone with someâ¦interesting proclivities that have provided the occasional bit of hilarity.
I will get random texts from time to time for the prior owner asking if I want to RSVP for events and parties that may or may not be questionable in nature, price quote requests for cabinet installations, golf outings, and random pictures of heavy equipment on trailers. I am not sure if the first and last things are related
How do they know? (Score:2)
A separate Battle.net support page notes that "mobile phones with prepaid plans may not work with the phone notification service." It also doesn't work with VoIP numbers.
And how does Activision know if a customer's phone number is pre-paid or monthly? Do phone companies hand that information out to any third parties that ask for it? It sounds like a privacy violation. Do all phone companies do this?
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That will be in the metadata. Probably part of the payment info, i.e. you needs to send an SMS to get that information.
Blizzard updated their meme (Score:5, Funny)
Blizzard 2018: Do you guys not have phones?
Blizzard 2022: Do you guys not have postpaid phone plans?
Gamer gaters (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone Else Noticing Webbing Between Your Toes? (Score:2)
I bought a new gaming PC the year before last with a 2080Ti, and unbeknownst to me, Nvidia started releasing their Nvidia Control Panel only via the MS Store, which required a Microsoft Account.
So I held my nose and created one, just so to download the software, at which point I promptly logged out of my "Microsoft Account".
I did absolutely nothing else with the account, and was logged in for somewhere between 30-90 seconds.
Seven days later, I got a notice that my Microsoft Account has been suspended, via t
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I bought a new gaming PC the year before last with a 2080Ti, and unbeknownst to me, Nvidia started releasing their Nvidia Control Panel only via the MS Store
I have the nvidia control panel on my Windows 8 install, without using the Microsoft store, and I installed it this year
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This isn't true - it's a free download from the Windows Store and doesn't require signing in at all. You can dismiss all the prompts to log in with an MS account and just install it on Win10 Pro.
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Good (Score:3)
Some form of more persistent ID is needed to get the cheating assholes that ruin everything under control. At the moment it is far too easy for them to get back in the game. Compared to the effects of their actins, the annoyance from the phone number verification approach is very minor.
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It is my time. The most important thing I have. If somebody ruins that time for me by cheating, I take that very seriously.
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Re: Good (Score:2)
Credit card, one cent money transfer, why only one way?
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Credit card, one cent money transfer, why only one way?
Would be fine with me, but likely some people would scream even louder. For example, with that $00.1 transfer, Blizzard would also get the Name of the user, which could be argues is more sensitive than the phone number.
But It think the main shortcoming is that credit card does not double as 2-factor-authentication for log-ins and Blizzard has had a lot of issues with hacked accounts. They handed out hardware authenticators for a token fee ($5 including shipping, if I remember correctly) for WoW before peopl
I stopped with phone contracts years ago (Score:2)
And went prepaid. And I have no desire to go back to a contract ever. Activision is being very anal restricting prepaid numbers. I'm sure that there are some players buying burner phones for this but they are in the minority, and they are either running some in game scheme, or maybe they belong in the mental ward.
OTOH I can understand Activision banning some VoIP numbers because many of the companies are shady fly by night operations that are widely used for all kinds of abuse.
What's the problem with MFA? (Score:3)
And really, are we to believe there are so many people out there with high-end consoles or gaming PCs, but not a cell phone? No, this reeks of "I want to cheat, stop trying to stop me."
Re: Indirect poverty shaming. (Score:3)
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I have one line. I pay T-mobile $25 bucks a month prepaid. Cheapest postpaid plans are $40 and $50.
I have one phone and no tracking band ... I mean smartwatch.
If I go abroad, I get a local SIM.
For the normal use case of a single guy with one phone, postpaid does NOT save money.
Re: And nothing was learned (Score:2)
(internet service goes down)
- _ -
(puts disc in console to play some swear to god it's all offline all on the disc single player gaming)
o_o
(splash screen of game appears, loading bar advances smoothly)
O_O
"We're sorry, but you must be connected to the internet so we can verify that you indeed own the physical copy of this game."
X_X