“ We know people make mistakes, and we believe lapses in judgment can be significant opportunities for growth. “ - Community Standards for Xbox

Throughout the years thousands of Xbox accounts have been banned on many of different circumstances. Now that we are in the year 2021, a lot of these accounts are likely over a decade old now excluding recently banned ones. While a lot of active accounts who may not have gotten in on the 7th gen consoles immediately are now creeping up on being a decade old too. These accounts from banned to active now likely have so much history behind them; ranging from gamer score, hours logged in and just memories overall. Gamers like everyone else are human. While we are aware of a code of conduct things do happen, we lose our cool, we have our days, we make mistakes. Could you imagine losing an account because you may have said something out of character leading you to being banned ? What about retaliating from someone that said something egregious but you ended up with the ban ? Or nightmare stories like joining a GTA lobby but not engaging in whatever boosting took place just for you to later on be banned for life ? So much history gone because of one mistake or something you never did.

The problem is the Xbox enforcement process doesn’t always work as intended. With a lot of these cases that happened, more context is needed. With the allowance of only 1000 characters to appeal your case in hopes of reversing your ban/suspension it just isn’t enough words. By the time context is provided we hadn’t even addressed the root of the problem yet and with this being our one chance to reverse a ban you can see how this could be a problem. After a case is resolved any kind of contact with the enforcement team is no longer possible. 

As we near closer and closer to the digital age of gaming; many of gamers who have lost these accounts have also lost all games associated with said accounts because of the rule in place. Thousands of dollars being wasted because of a ban. Since the start of the pandemic in 2020 people in general have had it hard. People losing family, friends, jobs and deteriorating mental health amongst other things. Since the start of it however we’ve seem to get more in front of it than we were behind it when it first started. My proposal is for Microsoft to unban all accounts at the start of 2022, giving gamers a fresh start the same way people in the world are getting their fresh start after just recently recovering from the pandemic. While I recognize this as a tall order it would be a great goodwill gesture after all that’s happened in this world. So wadd’ya say guys ? Like your community standards state, can whatever lapse in judgment made by these gamers be an opportunity for significant growth ?

Lastly I want to personalize this a little more so those can understand. My account now being 13 years old with over 100 thousand gamer score is amongst the banned. I was one of those gamers who bought the Xbox 360 at launch day playing exciting titles like GUN, Perfect Dark Zero and Madden 06. I remember changing my status as a schoolbus kid at school to being a walker in 5th grade just so I could get home earlier to play Halo 3 multiplayer before I had to do homework. Memories like these are what I refer to when I say gamers are losing more than just a gamer score or an account.