Valve Issues Biggest Ban Wave Ever After Steam Summer Sale

Over 40,000 Steam accounts have been banned for cheating, marking the biggest ban hammer Valve has swung to date. Some have lost access to their games — others, their entire accounts.

According the Steam database (via Dot eSports), the Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) system flagged a whopping 40,411 players for violations on July 6th. That makes the previous ban record of 15,217 from October 2016 look like child’s play. The usual single-day ban count from Valve’s automated anti-cheating system hits around 3,000- 4,000 accounts, so what made July 6th so special?

Well, the Steam Summer Sale ended on July 5th. Allegedly, players were buying games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 at a discount on new Steam accounts so they could test various cheats. But Valve was onto their plan and brought down the ban hammer the next morning, flagging 30,000 cheaters before lunchtime.

In addition to VAC, in-game player reports were the cause for another 5,000-ish bans. VAC bans prohibit accounts from connecting to Valve’s servers, which render their in-game purchased skins and items useless. The total value of digital items lost as a result of the ban wave totals about $9,580, according to tracking site Vac-Ban.

If you’ve been caught by Valve’s cheater purge — or didn’t and are still cheatin’ away — you might want to take a look at the VAC page.

“VAC bans are permanent, non-negotiable, and cannot be removed by Steam Support,” Valve writes. “If a VAC ban is determined to have been issued incorrectly, it will automatically be removed.”

If you’re worried about getting flagged, Valve warns, “Use caution when installing any game modifications like scripts or custom skins, and only download custom content from trusted sources. Hackers may maliciously disguise their cheats to cause others to get banned.”

If you want to join others in seeing cheaters get their just desserts, check out the VAC_Porn subreddit, which has an endless list of dead inventories resulting from the recent ban wave.