Let's say you're curious as to how, exactly, developer Infinity Ward determines whether an online offence is grave enough to warrant banning from their blockbuster shooter Modern Warfare 3. Or you're an asshole who just wants to see how far he/she can push it before copping a ban.
To satisfy your potentially self-harming curiosity, here is exactly how Infinity Ward deal with cheaters. How they're warned, what the various stages of punishment are, the works.
The complete guidelines have been publicly shared by Infinity Ward, and focus on the six things you can do that can result in a ban: Boosting, cheating, glitching, hacking, offensive behaviour and an offensive gamertag.
Boosting - Any player demonstrating 'game abuse' in the form of organizing cooperative or single game play for the purpose of gaining experience, prestige, score, weapon levels, icons, titles or other related in-game unlocks.
( i ) First Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 48 hours and a stats reset.
(ii) Second Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 48 hours and a stats reset, and a permanent ban from leaderboards.
(iii) Third Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 7 days and a stats reset, and a permanent ban from leaderboards.
Cheating - Any player demonstrating 'game abuse' in the form of unknown boosting, glitching, hacking or other related offenses for the purpose of gaining experience, prestige, score, weapon levels, icons, titles or other related in-game unlocks.
( i ) First Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 48 hours and a stats reset.
(ii) Second Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 48 hours and a stats reset, and a permanent ban from leaderboards.
(iii) Third Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 7 days and a stats reset, and a permanent ban from leaderboards.
Glitching - Any player demonstrating 'game abuse' in the form of organizing cooperative or single game play for the purpose of gaining experience, prestige, score, weapon levels, icons, titles or other related in-game unlocks. Examples: Exploiting map holes, the javelin glitch, and participating in modded lobbies
( i ) First Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 48 hours and a stats reset.
(ii) Second Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 48 hours and a stats reset, and a permanent ban from leaderboards.
(iii) Third Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 7 days and a stats reset, and a permanent ban from leaderboards.
Hacking - Any player demonstrating 'game abuse' in the form of modifying the executable or creating infected lobbies with or without the purpose of gaining experience, prestige, score, weapon levels, icons, titles or other related in-game unlocks.
( i ) First Offense: With proper verification, user is console banned.
Offensive Behavior - Any player demonstrating in-game verbal abuse, harassing, or other related behavior deemed as universally unacceptable to other players.
( i ) First Offense: With proper verification, user is banned for 24 hours
Offensive Gamertag - Any player demonstrating an offensive in-game gamer tag, to be decided as universally unacceptable to other players.
( i ) First Offense: With proper verification, user is reputation banned 5000. A reputation ban that exceeds a certain threshold can lead to bans from playing.
So there you go. All the stuff that can get you suspended, banned or even permanently banned, laid out nice and easy. It's a lot of words to basically say "don't be an asshole or we won't let you play our game", but that's not legalese enough for official documentation.
Also, as a bonus, Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling has posted an accompanying image of what the banhammer actually looks like on their end. Sadly, it is just a dialog pop-up with a picture of a hammer on it, and not a screen that's part of a giant Norse hammer.
Modern warfare 3 online Code of Conduct (How to get banned) [Call of Duty]