Valve bans a record 40,000 cheaters after the Steam Summer Sale

[Jos]

Valve’s automatic anti-cheat detection system has gone on a banning spree following the company’s most recent Summer Sale. According to the Steam Database, a third party tool that keeps track of the number of account bans on Steam per day — among other things — an estimated 40,411 accounts were shut down on July 5, one day after the sale ended.

That’s a huge spike over the usual 3,000 to 4,000 VAC bans per day and more than twice the previous record of 15,227 bans in a single day back in October 2016.

VAC bans prohibit accounts from connecting to Valve's servers, which render their in-game purchased skins and items useless. As Polygon explains, many cheaters take the opportunity of a Steam sale to stock up on cheap copies of games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Then they create multiple accounts in order to test which hacks are discovered by VAC, minimizing losses.

The massive number of bans suggests the VAC system is getting better at cracking down on cheaters. Once an account on Valve’s digital distribution platform and service has been banned by VAC, the decision is permanent, and supposedly non negotiable, though Valve does note on its Support page that if it finds you’ve been incorrectly flagged the decision will be reversed.

Aside from the VAC bans, an additional 4,972 were also banned on June 6 after players reported the cheaters in-game. The following days things settled back to more reasonable numbers.

According to another website, Vac-Ban, a total of $9,580 worth of digital items and skins were lost when the accounts were banned. That's not counting the cost of purchased games that the accounts lose access to, which will add up a few more thousand dollars.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/70065-valve-bans-record-40000-cheaters-after-steam-summer.html

 

[Nobina]

This game is still overflowing with cheaters.

 

[sac39507]

It kills me that some cheaters are grown *** men

 

[Brock Kane]

Thank you Steam! Rid if these *****s with small penises

 

[dirtyferret]

Haha

 

[amstech]

You don't even need to cheat in CS just use the AWP and camp.
Won't work on me though, I'll jump on your face with my AK-47.

 

[Puiu]

This game is still overflowing with cheaters.

I barely see 1 guy who "might" (and I stress the word "might") be cheating in around 10 games. compared to 1 year ago the game is much cleaner now.

 

[TomSEA]

Sucks to be them...

 

[sac39507]

I wish they would come up with a means of simply killing cheaters in the games instead of banning them. Everytime they attack someone they would die. I'd rather piss off and frustrate a cheater than simply banning them.

 

[JudasSheep]

I cannot understand why someone is compelled to cheat. I have been dealing with it since 2001 when I started gaming (remember the speed hack in CS). If you do not have the skill to do well, you need to play more but you need to accept you are going to lose a lot. If you cannot do that, then don't play the damn game. Cheating to win does nothing for you. You will either eventually be exposed or you will get caught, all for what? So you can feel good about yourself for being at the top of the list even though you did not earn it? I played CS, Q3 RA, DoD, UT and AoE2 religiously. I played every Battlefield and CoD released. I quit every time as more and more BS cheats ran wild. It became harder to have an enjoyable experience. I refused to be fodder for some kid who needed a cheat(s) to do well.

Until more companies use anti-cheats and ban accounts permanently cheating will always exist. Until then, I will support studios/companies who take cheating seriously and ban the s**t out of cheaters.

 

[sac39507]

I cannot understand why someone is compelled to cheat. I have been dealing with it since 2001 when I started gaming (remember the speed hack in CS). If you do not have the skill to do well, you need to play more but you need to accept you are going to lose a lot. If you cannot do that, then don't play the damn game. Cheating to win does nothing for you. You will either eventually be exposed or you will get caught, all for what? So you can feel good about yourself for being at the top of the list even though you did not earn it? I played CS, Q3 RA, DoD, UT and AoE2 religiously. I played every Battlefield and CoD released. I quit every time as more and more BS cheats ran wild. It became harder to have an enjoyable experience. I refused to be fodder for some kid who needed a cheat(s) to do well.

Until more companies use anti-cheats and ban accounts permanently cheating will always exist. Until then, I will support studios/companies who take cheating seriously and ban the s**t out of cheaters.

Sometimes I feel like game developers purposely create holes to allow cheating and cheaters are inside people. Also I think cheaters are psychologically messed up. They lack attention at home and have the need for recognition and cheating allows for that gratification.

 

[JudasSheep]

Sometimes I feel like game developers purposely create holes to allow cheating and cheaters are inside people. Also I think cheaters are psychologically messed up. They lack attention at home and have the need for recognition and cheating allows for that gratification.

You may be right. I know for a fact some holes get through QA. After 8 hrs of jumping against walls and such for example, its easy to miss a small detail just from the monotony.

I agree cheaters have mental issues as well. I can understand cheating for personal gain monetarily but just for recognition does not make sense to me.

 

[HardReset]

There are huge amount of errors in this news. VAC ban is not account ban. VAC ban only prohibit connecting on VAC-secured servers. Account ban means all games are useless, VAC-ban only affects on certain games. Here's this news article corrected:

Valve’s automatic anti-cheat detection system has gone on a banning spree following the company’s most recent Summer Sale. According to the Steam Database, a third party tool that keeps track of the number of VAC bans on Steam per day — among other things — an estimated 40,411 account owners had game VAC banned on July 5, one day after the sale ended.

That’s a huge spike over the usual 3,000 to 4,000 VAC bans per day and more than twice the previous record of 15,227 bans in a single day back in October 2016.

VAC bans prohibit accounts from connecting to Valve's VAC-secured servers, which render their in-game purchased skins and items useless on VAC banned games. As Polygon explains, many cheaters take the opportunity of a Steam sale to stock up on cheap copies of games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Then they create multiple accounts in order to test which hacks are discovered by VAC, minimizing losses.

The massive number of bans suggests the VAC system is getting better at cracking down on cheaters. Once an account on Valve’s digital distribution platform and service has been banned by VAC, the decision is permanent, and supposedly non negotiable, though Valve does note on its Support page that if it finds you’ve been incorrectly flagged the decision will be reversed.

Aside from the VAC bans, an additional 4,972 accounts were also VAC banned on June 6 after players reported the cheaters in-game. The following days things settled back to more reasonable numbers.

According to another website, Vac-Ban, a total of $9,580 worth of digital items and skins were lost when the accounts were VAC-banned. That's not counting the cost of purchased games that the accounts lose access to, which will add up a few more thousand dollars.

 

[sac39507]

You may be right. I know for a fact some holes get through QA. After 8 hrs of jumping against walls and such for example, its easy to miss a small detail just from the monotony.

I agree cheaters have mental issues as well. I can understand cheating for personal gain monetarily but just for recognition does not make sense to me.

Cheaters get aroused when people tell them "great game," "nice work," or any praising terms. God knows their wives, girlfriends/boyfriends, or mothers don't tell them these things at home. When I see these comments in a game I ask myself "are you people stupid? He/she is clearly cheating."

 

[Sum Guy]

Cheating is not the only reason they bann you. I was banned a long time ago for briefly mentioning piracy. The whole I stopped pirating was because of steam. Once I realized how cheap games can be I felt its wasn't worth the effort. Then they ruined my account over a little comment about piracy. It's like they want me to go back to pirating.