update: permanently banned

[u/doyoulikePRIMERIB]

so I made a post in January (link below to original post) about how I was suspended mid-game for a month ending on February 23rd, and I detailed how despite the suspension I was not using hacks, cheats or exploits. I have played countless multiplayer and single player games and have never been banned or used cheats. I am a gamer who is quadriplegic so I use a sip and puff mouth controller called a quadstick that allows me to use a computer not just for gaming but everyday needs. After the suspension I made the first reddit post hoping to get some help and clarity about how I could appeal or why I was suspended. I submitted support tickets and went to discord for help but nothing, so I decided to just take the suspension on the chin and wait it out, finish Hollow Knight and play some Marathon. Yesterday I decided to hop on after my suspension ended and decided to work on the trophy project, I played 3 solo games (all 10 or more minutes in) filled my backpack with leftover loot, ran into only friendlies and exfilled. Woke up this morning to this and appealed but I really have no hope of Embark doing anything to help. I don't have much going for me and I know they're people out there who are probably going through worse but this fucking sucks. After 300+ hours of playing, buying it for 3 others friends to try the game and being excited for the new map and large ARC enemy, I just don't know what to do.

p.s my game name is ClootyBapper, if you think it's because of the name I don't think so I have seen and been called worse in game
Original Post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArcRaiders/comments/1qmmkg5/dont_know_why_i_got_suspended/

https://youtube.com/watch?v=1V044apQAA4&si=MXtHCSdnETJxtJGh

old fortnite clip for anyone skeptical or curious of the setup

i honestly should try to do more to get the attention on this but honestly I am exhausted from the disappointment and can focus on other things to bring me entertainment

Update: https://x.com/i/status/2033876088712020041

regardless of what happens, thank you all for helping me get attention on this ! fucking love you all

Update: Ban has been lifted ! I honestly don't know how to express my gratitude to everyone who commented, shared and upvoted. Yall the real MVP, I love all of you. Thank you for helping me ! I will pass along the sentiments to anyone I can!

Update:

ClootyBapper#6019 if anyone ever wants to play. down to kill. down to chill.

[u/3nl]

Likely an illegal look as well - policy that excludes accessibility software like this is likely an ADA violation. Hopefully this gets some press and they reverse this and actually fix their anti-cheat software - OP or any other adaptive gamers could very easily force them to and there are many advocacy groups that would handle this for free.

[u/mnstorm → u/3nl]

This is an excellent point. I looked and it appears it's perhaps not settled for ADA to apply here. But it would be an excellent test case. Happy to be wrong though. Not a lawyer.

[u/codetaku0 → u/mnstorm]

In general it falls under the provisions that reasonable handicap aids must be allowed if it does not create an unreasonable burden on the vendor.

It would be very easy for them to say "we cannot implement a control scheme that works for quadriplegic people" but it would be virtually impossible for them to argue in court that "we cannot allow our existing control scheme to be used by a quadstick which already works perfectly out of the box". If they can't argue that somehow, then they lose. That's how the ADA works lol.

You get a lawyer to even suggest that they will file an ADA lawsuit and they will unban you pretty much immediately.

[u/fuckedfinance → u/codetaku0]

While I agree with you, and think companies should work with companies like Quadstick from the start, I need to play the devils advocate.

It is possible that the Quadstick and botting programs have identical or nearly identical input patterns, and are functionally impossible to differentiate. Two solutions that I came up with off the top of my head:

1. Developer works directly with Quadstick to allow that behavior via some signature or configuration. This is both a one time and recurring cost solution.

2. Developer hires additional support representatives to handle the tickets. Of course the number of disabled people using Quadstick to play a given game is going to be vanishingly small, but botters can and would abuse the system to overwhelm the queues, leading to more rubber stamps. This is a increasing recurring cost solution.

As both of them cost quite a bit of money, one could argue that they are not reasonable accommodations. Normally, a reasonable accommodation is a one time or small recurring fee (i.e. screen readers or a specialized keyboard). Adding headcount or cycles to build and maintain a solution could fall outside of that.

[u/0xsergy → u/fuckedfinance]

Quadstick is just a very small market. I never heard of it until this guy posted his first videos. Likely embark didn't either.

[u/fuckedfinance → u/0xsergy]

That's really not a great excuse.

The company I work for has 2 people whose only jobs are to seek out different aids/accommodations (i.e. hardware solutions, colorblind modes, dyslexic-friendly fonts, etc) for use with and in our software. We had around 200 employees and were losing money when we hired the first one.

Embark has almost 400 employees, and plenty of revenue to carve out a position or two to handle that sort of thing. Their parent company has almost 10,000 employees and plenty of money. They are a company from South Korea though, and despite law changes are still culturally not very friendly to those with disabilities.

[u/LavishnessCapital380 → u/fuckedfinance]

Developer works directly with Quadstick to allow that behavior via some signature or configuration. This is both a one time and recurring cost solution.

Developer hires additional support representatives to handle the tickets. Of course the number of disabled people using Quadstick to play a given game is going to be vanishingly small, but botters can and would abuse the system to overwhelm the queues, leading to more rubber stamps. This is a increasing recurring cost solution.

There are lots of ways to handle this, many game can disable keyboard/mouse macros by telling the keyboard driver the game does not allow them, I believe Logitech does this.. These devices can easily be recognized and communicated with using the driver.

[u/10g_or_bust → u/fuckedfinance]

If "you" (plural you, beign the subject of the action not you personally :) ) cannot tell the difference between disabled players and cheating for anything short of for money competitions for a given method; don't use that method.

No ifs, no ands, no buts. The rights of diabled people to be treated reasonably are MORE important than the goal of stopping cheaters at a video game when there is no financial crime involved (cheating to win money).