Valve has issued a record number of of VAC bans in a single week; shutting down over 80,000 Steam accounts within the span of a couple of days. There’s no telling what triggered this ban wave, but it is a welcome move to reduce the number of cheaters on the platform.
The spike in VAC bans began on Wednesday 18 July, where some 29,224 accounts were issued bans. This was followed by another 60,806 accounts being banned on 19 July. Friday saw the number of bans return to a more normal number, with only 20 accounts being affected.
For reference, the entire month of June only saw 56,449 accounts banned.
Chances are that most of these accounts were connected to a single cheat; and were all banned for the same reason. That said, this theory is far from confirmed. Valve itself has not issued a statement on the matter.
VAC covers a number of games on Steam. Spanning on only Valve’s own Dota 2, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and Team Fortress 2, but also third party games like Ark: Survival Evolved and Call of Duty. There’s a zero-tolerance policy in place, and the company usually doesn’t reverse the bans put in place.
[Source: Steamdb]
