2,500 Players Banned From Cheating in MW2

By Marcus Yam
published

Ban hammer hits MW2 Steam players.

As is always the case with PC gaming, there's always a greater population that'll be able to find cheats. The latest juggernaut Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 isn't immune to such a population, despite the calls for a boycott, and the folks at Infinity Ward and Valve have worked hard to weed out the first round of cheaters.

According to Ryan Bowling of Infinity Ward's Twitter, a Steam ban hammer has come down on about 2,500 Modern Warfare 2 cheaters.

"Top men are on it. In fact, the Steam ban hammer is coming down on about 2,500 confirmed #MW2 cheaters on PC today," Bowling wrote on his Twitter.

While the first Modern Warfare game used Punkbuster as its anti-cheat software, Modern Warfare 2 latches onto Valve's VAC system. Infinity Ward believes that this will deliver a better, more cheat-free experience for gamers.

For those of you who are playing Modern Warfare 2 on the PC, how's the fairness of play in your neck of the woods?

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Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
95 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ssalim
    2500? Well that's just about 99% of legit purchasers (PC). Lol.
    Reply
  • Maxor127
    I think VAC sucks. I notice more cheaters on VAC games than any Punkbuster games I play. I'd like to know what specific cheats have been going around since I've played plenty of people already who I suspect of cheating. But of course with the matchmaking, you can't ban anyone or even vote kick. Still, despite the complaints about no dedicated servers, I don't mind matchmaking so far as long as I use Team Deathmatch Express and just have to wait a few seconds between games.
    Reply
  • itadakimasu
    if i ask for this for christmas only to land on a server w\ a bunch of hacking 12 year olds... ima be pissed.

    i don't want to get it on ps3 because FPS are much better on PC... so the idea of not being able to kick or ban hackers is a little troublesome.
    Reply
  • superblahman123
    I wonder how many people will try to fight Steam on being banned.

    It's so silly when they piss everyone off by cheating and then get pissed themselves when they don't read the T&C to the letter. Who's the bitch now?
    Reply
  • itadakimasu
    ssalim2500? Well that's just about 99% of legit purchasers (PC). Lol.I was going to buy it last week for PC but they didn't have any @ frys. FPS on console is pretty stupid... it's way too hard for me to aim w\ analog stick.

    Reply
  • Luker3
    itadakimasuif i ask for this for christmas only to land on a server w\ a bunch of hacking 12 year olds... ima be pissed.i don't want to get it on ps3 because FPS are much better on PC... so the idea of not being able to kick or ban hackers is a little troublesome.
    Server? There are no servers, silly.

    I am in favor of VAC over punkbuster. Sure PB might have been better at automatically stopping cheaters without human intervention, but it is also good at kicking fair users that don't hack by kicking them because they are using an XFire overlay or because PB failed to update itself.

    Also, no one would care about PB or VAC if there were dedicated servers that could be moderated.
    Reply
  • superblahman123
    demonhorde665the question you should ask is "how many of these "cheaters" are just guys that hacked the game only to add mods to it ?" personally i think this game is a turd on pc , and i have boycotted it , in fact i have no desire to even look at this turd ... i mean game.
    It doesn't matter whether their intentions or actions are ethically legit or not, violating the T&C that comes with the software voids any rights you have regarding use of the software. These guys will be lucky if they are even allowed to use single player after this is over. Steam is the Big Brother of the video gaming world.

    They could just get another Steam account and buy the game again, thats prally the best 2nd chance they have.
    Reply
  • datawrecker
    There is no real aiming in consoles. You just need to get it somewhere in the reticle for it to count as a hit. That is if someone is not lagging and it does not count the rounds fired at all. Consoles are lagging more than I expected. I was on the 360 for 30 minutes waiting for the game to find a stable host. When it did finally connect, we were on for 5 minute before it tried to establish another host. What is sad is that this has gone on since release. Not only does the match making system suck, it makes baby jesus wet himself.
    Reply
  • gwolfman
    itadakimasuI was going to buy it last week for PC but they didn't have any @ frys. FPS on console is pretty stupid... it's way too hard for me to aim w\ analog stick.Amen!
    Reply
  • datawrecker
    superblahman123It doesn't matter whether their intentions or actions are ethically legit or not, violating the T&C that comes with the software voids any rights you have regarding use of the software. These guys will be lucky if they are even allowed to use single player after this is over. Steam is the Big Brother of the video gaming world.They could just get another Steam account and buy the game again, thats prally the best 2nd chance they have.
    Naaaaa, I have been banned many times from Steam. Valve states that they sometimes ban repeat offenders permanently, but I have never seen that happen and in the majority of cases users are allowed back in less than a years time. Don't kid yourself, Valve is not looking out for you. The more eligible users it has the more money it rakes in from ads. It has taken several weeks to find the first round of hackers. It is all part of the process, once you get banned you create another hack manipulating another part of the system to get what you want. Do you realize that there are hacks available for VAC monitored games that have been in the wild for YEARS and have not been seen. This is what MW2 is facing on all platform fronts. When games are ported from one platform to another any vulnerability in one system is present in all systems. It only took a week to get the console and dedicated server online for MW2. How much time do you think it will take for some of these cheats to start filtering over.
    Reply