Rockstar recently dealt a very big hammer blow to a GTA Online player who took advantage of an exploit that could make him a millionaire: as Polygon explains, an "apartment garage glitch" allowed players to buy real estate and then use a trick (apparently it was a fairly simple process) to quickly turn it into millions of dollars in in-game funds.

This is clearly against the rules of the game, and it is not surprising that Rockstar took steps to shut it down. However, rather than simply taking away the ill-gotten gains, Rockstar has completely reset the cheater's account.

"Players found to be manipulating and abusing property trade-ins to fraudulently gain GTA$ have had their affected characters reset," explained a Rockstar support entry added on August 26." As part of an ongoing effort to maintain a healthy gaming environment for all players, players found to be abusing or cheating to fraudulently obtain GTA$ or in-game items will have their cash balances adjusted, characters reset, suspended, and if necessary may be subject to punishment up to and including permanent banning."

Some players have taken the ban calmly.

Others are not.

Rockstar in particular has raised eyebrows at the severity of the ban, having never handed down such a punishment in the past.

Rockstar has not commented on why it has completely reset accounts in addition to removing money that was not properly earned, but we suspect that it is trying to use this opportunity to make a point: cheating has consequences. And GTA Online, for all its fun, has an ongoing problem with cheating. We reported in May that a GTA 5 giveaway campaign on the Epic Games Store led to a significant spike in mod use, but the net result was not only rampant glyphs, but only extra rampant.

At least the glitch has been resolved: a Rockstar representative confirmed that the glitch has been fixed.