14 DAY TRIAL // Publisher Electronic Arts is currently investigating some PunkBuster bans that innocent players received unjustly, while playing their Battlefield games.
For now, it is unclear just how many of their first-person shooter games' players have been affected by the unjustified bans, but EA is looking into the matter to get things sorted out as soon as possible.
PunkBuster is a dedicated anti-cheating program, created and maintained by a third party, Even Balance. The app runs alongside the Battlefield client, detecting and preventing the use of various cheats and hacks, and it serves to identify those who would attempt to gain an unfair advantage on the playing field.
Offending players are usually banned, in order to keep the multiplayer experience fair and fun for everyone involved, but apparently some false positives do turn up from time to time. Since Electronic Arts doesn't own PunkBuster, they can't directly access its database and solve the issue of the wrongful bans, players having to appeal to PunkBuster makers Even Balance directly.
The announcement comes from EA's support website, where the company reveals that any players who think they may have been affected by this can appeal to the ban by following the instructions provided on the dedicated webpage.