Battle.net deletes 400K accounts

Blizzard's Battle.net announced that it had closed more than 400,000 accounts, banning ladder play for more than 14,000 CD keys for one month and permanently banning 2,000 CD keys from ladder play. Battle.net permanently removed 276,000 Starcraft accounts, 86,000 Diablo II accounts, and 41,000 Warcraft III accounts.

In the announcement on its Web site, Battle.net also warns that any Diablo II players caught using a "map-hack" program risk having their accounts similarly disabled and CD keys banned. It also states that this is part of a stated plan of anticheating vigilance and that Battle.net reserves the right to take such account-closing and CD-key-banning actions where necessary in the future.

This move, a regular event at Battle.net, follows a similar cheater purge that removed more than 112,000 accounts in June.