Valve Apologises for Wrongful Modern Warfare 2 Bans

Steam proprietor Valve Software has apologised after its cheat-detection software banned over twelve thousand innocent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare...

Alice O'Connor

July 27, 2010 7:10 AM

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Steam proprietor Valve Software has apologised after its cheat-detection software banned over twelve thousand innocent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 players. Non-cheating gamers were flagged as cheaters by a mistake with the Valve Anti-Cheat feature of Valve's Steamworks suite, which Modern Warfare 2 uses. "The problem was that Steam would fail a signature check between the disk version of a DLL and a latent memory version," Valve president Gabe Newell wrote in an e-mail to the victims.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

"This was caused by a combination of conditions occurring while Steam was updating the disk image of a game. This wasn't a game-specific mistake," he explained. "Steam allows us to manage and reverse these erroneous bans (about 12,000 erroneous bans over two weeks)." "This was our mistake, and I apologize for any frustration or angst it may have caused you," wrote Newell. Valve has granted those mistakenly banned a free copy of Left 4 Dead 2 to gift to a chum plus a free copy for themselves if they didn't already own it. Thanks to the many, many people who sent in tips on the subject.

Alice O'Connor

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pun][sher

 reply
July 27, 2010 7:19 AM

Valve is so cool.
- sirchunkalot
  
   reply
  July 30, 2010 6:19 AM
  
  I see, I read some good things, I also read a complete load of rubbish.
  I Ran 3 COD4 Servers and we policed them with punk buster / And server admins, Who were fair and level headed.
  If a player did wrong he would get a warning 3 strikes you out. (kick player)
  The player would be free to come back on as long as he/ she, was not rude and did not cheat.
  If a player came on and was obviously hacking he would have a Bann, from ALL our servers and if it was that bad a total punk buster Bann.
  The player always had the chance to come on to our forum and plead there case.
  We would look at the screen shots of the player and make a decision from the facts.
  
  A VAC Bann is not right nor fair.
  A VAC Bann will stop your game with no right to appeal.
  VAC will not give you any info on how, where , when, and what for.
  VAC banns not only cover mw2 but all games you have,!!
  So you can have 4 games on your steam account and you will lose all of them even though you may not have played them for months.
  
  A more fair way of policing the games is needed.
  Server admins is one of them.
  
  I my self have had a mw2 VAC Bann, I can see that some people on here will laugh and say guilty guilty, guilty, The valve VAC system is a poor system, To cause 12,000 people such a load of hassle and upset and them for them to just say opps sorry we will give you a free game, does not cut mustard.
  I say out with VAC make it fair,
  Let people have a chance not all people are bad you know,
  People have a right to know what they have done to get a Bann and ask for a chance to put things straight,
  And only on the game they were playing at that time.
  
  Yes there are people who cheat and they need to be punished but make the banns fair.!!!
  - wantox
    
     reply
    July 30, 2010 6:26 AM
    
    Dude you are right.
    We should get info of why we got banned.
    But it's not only 12,000 people who has got banned for not cheating, there are many many more, but steam can't admit it.