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Massive spike in Steam account bans in wake of Summer Sale

by Mark Tyson on 11 July 2017, 12:01

Tags: Valve

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There are reports that, in the wake of the Steam Summer Sale, there has been the biggest ever spike in VAC bans seen in the history of Steam. On 6th July Valve put in place 40,445 user bans according to the Steam Database.

As a reminder, Valve Anti-Cheat System (VAC) bans occur when a user has cheats detected on their system. It is an automated system designed to detect cheats which are often manifested as modifications to a game's core executable files and dynamic link libraries. Not all games support the VAC system but many popular competitive ones do.

The Steam Summer Sale ended on 5th July and it looks like a whole host of cheaters took advantage of the low pricing to try and set up new accounts and indulge in their cheating ways. Perhaps one or two reported success of re/gaining access to a certain game with their cheats enabled and many others bought in. Eurogamer theorises that would-be cheaters created new accounts with some keenly priced games to test the viability of cheats with their main accounts. Polygon thinks that a lot of the cheat probing was undertaken by CS:GO players. However, Steam's 'banhammer' somehow detected thousands of cheaters and neutralised over 40,000 of them on the following day.

Previously, the biggest day for bans was 15,227, during October last year. Of the 40,445 bans last Thursday just over 5,000 of them were in-game bans based upon complaint reports from fellow players.



HEXUS Forums :: 7 Comments

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I'm glad that this is happening. A lot of people have lost a lot of money when they're accounts got banned (due to their in-game items) so hopefully it'll reduce the number of future hackers. It's also at a good time because new players who bought the game during the steam sale will be less likely to hack now :)
Of the 40,445 bans last Thursday just over 5,000 of them were in-game bans based upon complaint reports from fellow players.
So they get banned a while back, finally regain access… and then go right back to misbehaving and get banned again within hours?

What is the point?

THIS is why I don't like multiplayer games…
If it's not a detectable hack, then it's an undetectable (at present) exploit, or even altering graphics settings. In competition people want an advantage and I'm pretty fed up of people saying “Hey it's <insert game here>! What did you expect?”, as if that justifies spoiling legitimate/honest players fun, for what? What tangible reason?
I honestly don't see a point in cheating either. What's the point of playing a game if you're just going to cheat to win? The fun comes with the challenge. People don't seem to understand that you could just play more and get more experience to get better and win…
The problem is many don't understand what ranks are for in many online games, the idea is you eventually level out at your skill level and can then be matched with other players of similar ranks so you have a good game which could go either way.

Instead people get fixated on making the number higher however possible.

Personally when i play online its to play something less predictable than an AI, I don't care if I win or lose.