Not every video game is perfect. Sure, a video game may have excellent graphics, an incredible story, and gameplay elements, but if there are bugs and glitches present, those can easily ruin the experience. Some may be very insignificant, only causing a minor hiccup. However, there can also be those that can destroy progress or cause major problems that can affect the entire game (or worse, the save data).
Bethesda is well-known for its incredible and unique open-world games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 3, but it's no secret that almost all of those games suffer from a tremendous amount of glitches and game-breaking bugs. Fallout 76 is no exception. Ever since the game came out, it had its fair share of glitches, some of which were ironed out by Bethesda. Unfortunately, others remained and some players took it upon themselves to seek those glitches out in hopes they would get noticed and fixed.
Recently, despite looking through Fallout 76's data files with good intentions, a group of players has been banned by Bethesda. Jaret Burkett, who most players know as the person behind Map 76, was one of the people to get banned by Bethesda after submitting a bug report.
As explained by Burkett, after his account got banned, he tried to reach out to Bethesda for a possible explanation. Bethesda has not replied to him, nor looked into his issue for weeks. To make matters worse, Burkett has also attempted to request a refund for Fallout 1st (due to some of the glitches that came with the subscription), but was refused because he had already spent some of the Atoms (the game's micro-transaction currency). Ultimately, he did end up getting the refund, but most likely because he was a "special exception."
Upon the news reaching the Fallout 76 community, players lashed out at Bethesda for its lack of communication and unprofessionalism. However, the company attempted to control the backlash by issuing a statement in which it said that players do not get banned for reporting bugs and glitches, but for using third-party programs "to take advantage of exploits." Of course, players and Burkett's defenders didn't believe any of that simply because official Fallout 76 testers use third-party programs to help the game.
The situation has not been resolved yet, and it is unclear if Burkett's ban will ever get lifted. As of the time of the writing, the Map 76 website continues to remain offline.
Source: Game Rant