NetEase has revealed their official stance on keyboard and mouse adapters for Marvel Rivals.
They made this announcement on their official site:
“We have forged a strong detection tool and couple with the keen judgment of our watchful human eyes to accurately identify those using keyboard and mouse adapters.
We believe that gaining an unjust advantage through such methods significantly impacts the gaming experience for our players. Therefore, whether on PC or console, we will take measures to vanquish this nefarious behavior. Penalties for users of keyboard and mouse adapters may include temporary or permanent account suspensions, removal from leaderboards, or other punishments depending on the circumstances.”
While unsurprising, this may prove to be an unpopular decision on NetEase’s part. They have made this choice on behalf of players who dislike the use of keyboard and mouse adapters and believe that any use of this is cheating. However, there are also gamers who use keyboard and mouse adapters to play these games while being disabled. This group would be theoretically the smaller of the two, but if we are talking about this in terms of public relations, that smaller group can still make enough noise to hurt Marvel Rivals and Netease’s brand.
And really, this is where we have to acknowledge the need for a debate on what is fair for all gamers? Is it fair that disabled gamers are just not allowed to play Marvel Rivals? And perhaps more importantly, is this really a situation which demands zero compromises?
We have reported on similar bans being instituted for Destiny 2, Call of Duty, by Xbox and PlayStation. But Microsoft claims that they have systems to recognize when gamers are using keyboard and mouse adapters to recognize cheating, and when a player using these devices is not cheating, and could actually be disabled. So there is a way to separate cheaters from legitimate users of these devices, probably by watching the player behavior alongside tracking down users of the devices.
If Microsoft has such systems and can put them in place for Xbox users, why can’t other game companies do the same? We recognize they would not be the only ‘offender’, but NetEase deciding to go this way is a disservice to disabled gamers. We would even argue this precedent is harmful to consumer rights overall.
We really do not approve of NetEase’s decision in this situation, but such choices can be changed. We’ll see how the company reacts if and when this issue comes back for them.
