It seems that VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat) is working, as over the past week nearly 100,000 Steam users have been banned from using the service. During this huge crackdown Valve has obliterated the numbers of their last record breaking purge that occurred during July of last year when 40,000 users had been banned.
Some leading theories online make the point that this uptick in bans could be in part due to the Summer Sale. These online commentators believe that with reduced prices, cheaters will purchase games like CS:GO on several different accounts. Once these accounts are found, Valve may be able to ban “blocks” of accounts at once. Another theory purported by PCGamesN declares that due to new cheats having released in and around the same time, the numbers have increased. Team Fortress 2, Ark: Survival Evolved, CS:GO, and Dota 2 all saw new hacks come out recently.
On Wednesday, July 18, Valve banned 28,409 users, only to be followed up by 61,490 accounts getting hit by the ban-hammer the following day. When you consider the fact that many users own Steam accounts worth several thousands of dollars, the potential cost of a mass ban such as this could be astronomical. On an account found by users on the /r/VAC_Porn subreddit shows that the inventory of a banned account could easily be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
At the end of the day the lesson stands, cheating does not pay, and on a long enough timeline it will be dealt with. Think twice before you install that hack.
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