Publisher Blizzard has blocked some third-party applications for its team shooter Overwatch.

In a blog post, community manager Tom Powers said that this applies to applications that "impede on the competitive integrity" of the game, pointing to Overwatch's terms of service.

"Our stance has always been that users found to be cheating—or using hacks, bots, or third-party software that provides any sort of unfair advantage—those users will be permanently banned from the game," he wrote.

"In this case, we’ll be reaching out to users that we’ve detected to be using this unauthorized software; to notify those users that those specific third-party applications are not permitted and do not align with the Blizzard EULA. Furthermore, we will be requesting those users to immediately remove the unauthorized software to avoid account suspension.

"We take competition very seriously in Overwatch. The foundation of good competition is every player being equally-equipped to compete against one another, but many third-party applications erode the level playing field in Overwatch we strive for."

This follows writer Sabriel Mastin receiving an email that her account was using "unauthorised third-party applications".