Is that a Call of Duty developer asking to be your friend on Xbox Live? Sadly, no, it probably isn’t.
Black Ops developer David “Vahn” Vonderhaar has posted on the official Treyarch forums, warning gamers that someone is pretending to be him on Xbox Live. Vonderhaar doesn’t go into detail about what the imposter is doing, but it seems likely that he or she is up to no good.
Vonderhaar referenced the recent multiplayer teaser trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops, where “DJVahn” can be seen playing. But Vonderhaar says that Treyarch didn’t use Xbox Live when it made that video, so anyone using that tag – or any of the other names in the video – is a fraud.
“When you are in development of the game, you are not using Xbox Live,” he said. “You are using the development version of it. Think of it like a copy of Xbox Live that only developers use. It’s called ‘Partnernet’ … On Partnernet, we can make up as many gamertags as we want, as long as they are not taken … That’s why you see WayneNoobton, DJVahn, and others in the video.” Vonderhaar says that Treyarch has contacted its account rep at Microsoft and the matter is being looked into.
It’s not hard to cook up a few different scams that people might be trying using the assumed identity of a Call of Duty developer, although it’s entirely possible that it’s much less sophisticated than that, and it’s just someone who wants to try and add a little more weight to his or her Xbox Live trash talking. Unless someone comes forth with the details however, we’ll probably never know for sure.
Source: Eurogamer
