Players Banned for 136 Years from Super Smash Bros

As an avid League of Legends player, I will be the first to admit that I have indeed raged in a game or two, and have received a punishment or a ban as a result of my delinquent behavior. Banning systems are the backbone of online gaming, it keeps the community in check. They are usually fair, just, and let's be honest, everyone has received at least one ban in their lives at some point. A couple days of cooling your head a bit is sometimes exactly what a passionate gamer needs in order to continue playing the game he loves and have fun while doing it.  

Bans usually vary depending on the severity of the action taken by the gamer in question. Whether it be a 3 day ban from League of Legends for intentional feeding, a week long ban from Destiny for sneaking into DLC areas early, or a perma-ban from CSGO for hacking. However one might dare to ask, is there a ban higher than a perma life ban?  Nintendo says yes! Over the last week, many players of the popular 3DS game Super Smash Bros, have been receiving a 136 year ban for what they say is not a result of bad behavior but rather a glitch in the system itself.

There are many theories behind exactly what made this glitch come to be in the game.  One of the most popular reasonings is explained by reddit user rstevoa on how programmers calculate time. “Time on computers (at least when we're talking about ban length) is measured in seconds. When someone gets a ban, they receive a ban with a corresponding number of seconds. 15 minutes is actually a 900 second ban, for instance.” The explanation goes on to explain that if you don't have signs, a computer can hold numbers between 0 and 4294967295 without you telling it to store bigger numbers. So basically what happened was quite possibly a programmer that worked on the game decided to set the default ban to -1, but as previously explained the computer only recognizes numbers 0-4294967295, so a -1 ban would result in the computer circling itself to the highest number 4294967295.  

Although this is just a theory, (and a damn well thought out one at that) no one quite knows exactly what Nintendo intends to do about these excessive ban times.  Though knowing the excellent quality of customer service that Nintendo is know for, we expect them to resolve this mistake in the near future. In closing here are a few tips on how to stay away from this ban and continue on your path to being the best Pokemon master, or something like that.

A. Try not to target one player in Group/FFA.

B. Just use 1v1 for the time being

C. Don't use online at all.

D. Don't quit mid-match

E. Don’t play Mega Man….because he’s cheap and stupid and we hate him