Once upon a time there was a company called NCsoft and their game called Lineage II. The game had been very successful in its days, but now the customers were slowly dwindling.
A few voices inside the company whispered of bots to blame, but most insisted it was the competition. At one emergency meeting it was suggested to make the game F2P and soon the game was successful again.
For a little while at least… and then the bots started coming in, in even greater numbers. The paying customers started leaving and once again there was an emergency meeting.
“What of the bots then?” someone at the meeting cried. “If we continue with the gates fully open, they will flood and drown us!”
“Not true,” someone else said. “We have long history of bot control and thorough investigations of bots. And we ban no innocents and make no mistakes. Everyone knows that.”
”But our careful methods won”t be able to cope with the influx much longer,” the first voice cried yet again. ”We need to hire more GMs!”
“No. That won”t happen,” said the director. “We are already in the red. We need to be saving, not spending. No new GMs. Absolutely not!”
“What if you start botting the bans?” a more quiet, sibilant voice broke in.
“Use a script to catch the bots… Catch them all in one fell swoop…”
For a moment it was almost chockingly quiet. Complete silence reigned…
”But won”t the script make some mistakes?” a voice broke the silence. “What if it makes errors and catches innocents?”
”if it does, then deny it!” the whispering and sibilant voice said. “Let it be known that once banned, always guilty.”
More cries were heard. “Our reputation will be ruined!” “We cannot sacrifice our customers!”
“Once banned, always guilty,” the sibilant voice cut in angrily.
“I like the idea, let us deny it!” the director said, laughing and clapping his hands.
“But what of our reputation won”t it be hurt?” a more hesitant voice said.
“Nay,” said another “It won”t be the truth anymore, but if we can keep the idea that we make no mistakes, enhance it and let everyone keep believing it, then the few innocents caught won’t matter. Everyone will believe they are guilty, if we say they are”.
The director stopped laughing, coughed and said “Yes if a few innocents are caught we will make them look guilty. As we are NCsoft no one would question us. As everyone knows we do not ban without thorough investigation.
The director started laughed again and someone else cried “deny it!” Another yelled “deny everything!” and yet another “Yes, deny all!” And soon they were all chanting “Once banned, always guilty. Once banned, always guilty”.
In the background the one with the sibilant voice put his fingertips together, smiled an ugly smile and whispered under his breath, “Excellent. Excellent indeed….”
And so the game lived on for a while… The bots kept flooding in and not a few were banned by the script. A few innocents were caught in the ban nets as well, but they were told they were bots and quickly discarded.
For a while many cries rose up in protest, but no one listened to those voices. Everyone believed in NCsoft, and there were always those that would chant in the background:
“Once banned, always guilty. Once banned, always guilty“.