Blizzard do not like people who use bots to play Hearthstone. they ruin the game for players they say. And now they’ve banned several thousand accounts that were using third party software in order to play the game for them, despite them having not done anything about it previously other than condemn it.

In August this year Hearthstone community manager Daxxarri made Blizzard’s stance on the third party software bots clear. “Making use of third party programs that automate gameplay (also known as ‘bots’ or ‘botting’) is a violation of our Terms of Use. Accounts that are found to be making use of ‘bots’ are subject to penalties, up to and including permanent suspension.”

The bans though aren’t too harsh in the scheme of everything though, they will last just until the year is over so if you’ve been caught botting you should be able to start playing again in 2015. Which is fair enough if you’ve learned your lesson about it. However, if you get caught doing it again, Blizzard won’t be so lenient.

“We will continue to closely monitor activities within Hearthstone and take appropriate action against cheating in any form, as outlined in our Terms of Use. From this point on, accounts found to be cheating will be permanently closed without warning.”