Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-9890645-20131112205748/@comment-13129747-20131113124433

MushaConvoy wrote: Do you know if there is a way to tell how these cheaters are cheating? If all data is stored on the Mobage/Dena servers, how can they gain access to this? - if the cheating is being done as a result of a security flaw in the Mobage/Dena servers, there should be something done to fix it ASAP and compensation made to those that spent money during the event that couldn't win as a result of the security issue.

Not to get this thread too off track, but my understanding is Mobage saw some odd calls to their servers that they investigated after they were tipped off that people were cheating. It's not like they were looking for it in the first place and probably wouldn't have found it for a while unless someone mentioned it to them.

Basically the game communicates back to the server to let it know what's going on with the status. My guess is that they intercepted and modified these calls to perform a certain way. If it was allowing them to reduce the price of the items they purchased, technically they still bought the item albeit at a reduced price, so I don't know that Mobage can legally start taking those things away without refunding the money which opens a whole new can of worms.

For those who want to know the TOS: https://app.mobage.com/terms. Search for General Prohibitions. There's a whole load of things you aren't supposed to do such as:

"Abuse or exploit a bug, glitch or mechanism in the Service;"

A little further down in Termination of ngmoco Accounts:

"Without limiting other remedies, ngmoco may at any time suspend or terminate your ngmoco Account and refuse to provide access to our Services if ngmoco suspects or determines, in its own discretion, that you may have or there is a significant risk that you have: (i) failed to comply with any provision of these Terms or any policies or Rules established by ngmoco; (ii) engaged in actions relating to or in the course of using our Services that may be illegal or cause liability, harm, embarrassment, harassment, abuse or disruption for you, ngmoco Users, ngmoco or any other third parties or our Services; or (iii) infringed the proprietary rights, rights of privacy, or Intellectual Property Rights of any person, including as a repeat infringer. In addition, ngmoco may notify authorities or take any other actions it deems appropriate, without notice to you, in the event of any of the above."

So according to their TOS, they are allowed to suspend the account.

Oh, add me to the no money any more list.