Valve Now Allowing Banned Players Access to Games

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Apparently, Valve had quietly implemented an account policy to allow banned players to access their games months ago.

Valve’s apparently updated its account policies to allow banned players to access their games. Previously, users who had been banned from their Steam account were locked out from playing their games, bringing up complaints about Steam’s DRM.

Valve’s change in policy was quietly implemented, according to a recent forum post by Steam forums Volunteer Moderator Heffebaycay, about two months ago. Heffebaycay’s response spawned out of a thread regarding EA’s recent policy change also allowing banned players to access their game.

Under the new policy, banned Steam members no longer have their accounts disabled but now have “account locking” set, meaning that while they’re able to access their games, they will be unable to buy games, redeem codes, or trade items.

Catherine Cai
29 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hoofhearted
    Why not just ban them from multiplayer (assuming they were banned for cheating)?
    Reply
  • hoofhearted
    Or create a virtual prison where they can only play with other banned players.
    Reply
  • ndiancobra
    I think it is a reasonable thing to do. You purchased a license for the game and should be given access to it. However, I think most gamers these days are only interested in the online multiplayer. The bottom line is that online multiplayer cheating is rampant and the vast majority of those steam bans were deserved.
    Reply
  • godfather666
    Why were they banned?
    Reply
  • zeppelin101
    hoofhearted: this is not a VAC (valve anti cheating) ban they're talking about. This is the type of ban Valve used to institute on people who did something like a chargeback on their credit card. Essentially, they would disable people's accounts.
    Reply
  • zeppelin101
    This is me making an assumption - I did not read the thread on the forums. The thing is - Valve had never banned people from playing the games they were banned from - just their multiplayer component. This usually would go 'per-engine'. So if you got banned in Counter-Strike: Source, you would not be able to play DoD: Source, and probably TF2 (even though it uses a way newer version of the engine), but you could play on non-VAC servers, as well as a single player Source game like HL2.
    Reply
  • MxM
    ndiancobraI think it is a reasonable thing to do. You purchased a license for the game and should be given access to it. However, I think most gamers these days are only interested in the online multiplayer. The bottom line is that online multiplayer cheating is rampant and the vast majority of those steam bans were deserved.
    You have not seen statistics then. Huge majority of the gamers are single player with only occasional multiplayer experience.
    Reply
  • vittau
    zeppelin101This is me making an assumption - I did not read the thread on the forums. The thing is - Valve had never banned people from playing the games they were banned from - just their multiplayer component. This usually would go 'per-engine'. So if you got banned in Counter-Strike: Source, you would not be able to play DoD: Source, and probably TF2 (even though it uses a way newer version of the engine), but you could play on non-VAC servers, as well as a single player Source game like HL2.Yeah that's how I think it goes, at least for accounts banned due to cheating.

    Maybe this policy change is related to other kinds of bans, such as those caused by fraudulent payment, sharing/buying/selling accounts, using the account for phishing, etc...
    Reply
  • gm0n3y
    hoofheartedWhy not just ban them from multiplayer (assuming they were banned for cheating)?This.

    The whole point is to stop people from cheating. Why restrict their access to single player games? It must be more complicated than we think.
    Reply
  • zeppelin101
    gm0n3yThis.The whole point is to stop people from cheating. Why restrict their access to single player games? It must be more complicated than we think.
    Ehh, it's not always fraudulent. I don't know all the specifics, but there have been times when something unforeseen happens regarding payment and people's accounts have been disabled - with no recourse for appeal.
    Reply