‘Overwatch’ Dev Condemns Use of Mouse, Keyboard On Consoles After Banning Hackers, Cheaters

The team behind Blizzard Entertainment’s “Overwatch” is strongly against the use of the mouse and the keyboard when playing the team-based multiplayer first-person shooter on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles. They recently issued a warning to players who are doing this kind of trick to make it easier for them to play the game.

On Blizzard Entertainment’s online forums page, game director Jeff Kaplan announced to players that the “Overwatch” team disapproves of the use of the aforesaid peripherals when playing the game on consoles. In a move to discourage this shady practice, Kaplan shared that they have since contacted the manufacturers of supported consoles — Sony and Microsoft — and pointed out to them the frustration of having gamers use the input conversion devices just to cheat on the barely 1-year-old video game.

“We have lobbied and will continue to lobby for first-party console manufacturers to either: Disallow mouse and keyboard and input conversion devices, or openly and easily support mouse and keyboard for ALL players,” Kaplan wrote. The game director also encouraged players to reach out to the manufacturers to raise their concerns in “a productive and respectful way.”

Kaplan posted the warning on the thread that discusses how many “Overwatch” players on Xbox One and PS4 use the keyboard and the mouse via XIM and other converters. With the use of converters, players can utilize the peripherals even though they are not officially supported on the consoles. What these devices then do is increase the precision of players in aiming at targets with the pointer than with the use of the consoles’ analog stick, according to VG24/7. Many consider this cheating, so it’s just about time that Blizzard addresses the issue.

Though the warning does not entail anything that would lead to players getting banned from accessing “Overwatch” for using the input devices, the disapproval of the developer is pretty much an indication that players shouldn’t use this trick from now on. After all, Blizzard just recently banned almost 20,000 players after they were proven to have used illegal hacks and cheats to gain an unfair advantage against other players, as per Express.