As reported Monday, many Modern Warfare 2 PC gamers complained over the past week that Valve's Anti-Cheat (VAC) software banned them from the game. Their argument was that they weren't actually cheating, and to get Valve's attention, most flocked to the Modern Warfare 2 forums, the Steam forums, and an invite-only Steam Group to make their case. But despite their outcries, they were told that nothing could be done about the problem save for purchasing a new copy.
Surprisingly, Valve head honcho Gabe Newell stepped forward and issued a statement to those affected by the ban. It was believed that the company would stay true to its stance against discussing and revoking bans, remaining a silent observer. However this time Newell admitted that the banning was a mistake on Valve's part and plans to rectify the situation.
"I apologize for any frustration or angst it may have caused you," he said in the email that can be seen here. "The problem was that Steam would fail a signature check between the disk version of a DLL and a latent memory version. 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. Steam allows us to manage and reverse these erroneous bans (about 12,000 erroneous bans over two weeks)."
That's fine and dandy, but where does that leave all those banned gamers? After all, they face shelling out more bucks to regain access. "We have reversed the ban, restoring your access to the game," he added. "In addition, we have given you a free copy of Left 4 Dead 2 to give as a gift on Steam, plus a free copy for yourself if you didn't already own the game."
I'll gladly take that L4D2 gift copy off your hands. Here's how you do it.
