Valve’s Ban Rate Has Increased Exponentially
In just two days time, Valve has banned 90,000 users on Steam. So far this year, the company has banned an average of 100,000 users per month, with the exception of June’s 56,000.
As reported on GamesIndustry.biz (via PCGamesN), the recent Steam bans were carried out by Valve’s anti-cheat (VAC) technology. According to SteamDB, the recent wave of bans was triggered this past Wednesday, a day that saw a total of 28,409 purged from the system. Yesterday, that count more than doubled, and an additional 61,486 users dropped off the radar. It’s still early in the day, but the daily graph, at the time of this writing, indicates that there’s only been one ban thus far.
As for what triggered the VAC’s latest ban wave, it’s possible the system identified a new game exploit. Since VAC accounts for games like DOTA 2, CS: GO, and third-party titles like Call of Duty, it’s possible that one if not multiple IPs exposed signs of cheating.
It will be interesting to see if Valve’s anti-cheat system can maintain low offender counts. Judging by this latest cheater purge, Steam users are still finding game exploits around every turn. At the same time, it may be that Valve’s software is evolving.
SOURCE: GI.biz