Valve banned over 40,000 cheating accounts right after this year's Steam Summer Sale ended, marking the biggest ever ban wave on Steam in a single day.
The accounts were caught by the Valve Anti-Cheat system, and the bans were recorded by the Steam Database.
Over 40,000 Cheaters Banned In A Single Day
From the usual 3,000 to 4,000 bans handed out by the VAC, the system detected and banned 40,411 cheating accounts on Steam at the end of July 6. The figure was a record high, significantly surpassing the previous record of 15,227 bans that took place on Oct. 12, 2016, according to the Steam Database.
A further 4,972 accounts were banned as a result of in-game reports, for a total value of lost skins and other digital items of up to $9,580. When a player is banned by the VAC, they are no longer allowed to join Valve servers, which make their skins and other digital items useless. On July 6, the total value of items lost to the VAC graveyard nearly reached $10,000.
The bans were handed out a day after the end of the annual Steam Summer Sale, the last day of which was on July 5.
Reason Behind Massive Spike In Bans
Cheaters take advantage of promotions such as the Steam Summer Sale to pick up several copies of games at low prices. They then create multiple accounts and use them to test which hacks can be detected by the VAC system. Cheaters will of course not use their main accounts so that these will not be banned by Valve.
By setting a record number of bans in a single day, Valve appears to be making a statement that it is ramping up the fight against cheaters on the Steam platform.
Will The Bans Stop Cheaters?
The question, however, is whether the act to ban over 40,000 accounts in a single day will scare players away from using cheats while playing games on Steam.
The unfortunate answer is that no, it will probably not. While Valve has stepped up its measures against Steam cheaters, including restrictions on Steam trading and turning to artificial intelligence for help, cheaters have not stopped trying to use hacks that gave them unfair advantages over other players.
As of now, it remains unclear what else Valve can do to solve the cheating problem on Steam once and for all. The company is already doing a lot, but it seems that it will have to do so much more.
