Blizzard bans 350k from Battle.net

Having banned nearly 8,000 people for cheating at Warcraft III a fortnight ago, Blizzard has now banned over 350,000 StarCraft and Diablo II accounts also "found to be using third-party hacks" on Battle.net.

"As part of our continued effort to ensure a fair and fun online experience for all Battle.net players, we have expanded our efforts to remove cheaters from StarCraft and Diablo II," the company said in a statement.

However, it's not a death sentence for the Diablo II cheaters, whose CD keys will still allow them to log in again after "approximately 30 days" and make a new account, in order to see if they've learned their lesson. If not, they and their pesky CD keys will be sent packing in a subsequent "ban policy update".

"As a reminder, we reserve the right to close the accounts and ban the CD keys of players who are caught cheating on Battle.net. Cheating ruins the game experience for legitimate players, and we will not tolerate it."