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Valve Apologizes For 12,000 Erroneous Anti-Cheating Bans
Earlier this week, there were reports that large numbers of Modern Warfare 2 players on Steam were getting erroneously banned by Valve's Anti-Cheat software. While such claims are usually best taken with a grain of salt, the quantity and suddenness caused speculation that Valve's software wasn't operating correctly. A few days later, Valve president Gabe Newell sent out an email acknowledging that roughly 12,000 players had been inappropriately banned over the preceding two weeks. "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." Valve reversed the bans and gave free copies of Left 4 Dead 2 to everyone who was affected.
They admitted there was an error and as an apology gave them all a rather expensive game. That's pretty good customer service.
Disagree != mod troll.
Here is the actual email from Gabe that was sent out:
--
Hello,
Recently, your Steam account was erroneously banned from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
This was our mistake, and I apologize for any frustration or angst it may have caused you.
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).
We have reversed the ban, restoring your access to the game. 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.
To share your extra copy of Left 4 Dead 2 with a friend, you can 'Manage Gifts and Guest Passes' from the 'Games' Menu in Steam, or visit this article on the Steam Support site for detailed instructions: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4502-TPJL-2656.
To access your own copy of Left 4 Dead 2, visit your library of games in Steam. If you didn't already own the game, it will now be listed among your others there, and is available for download immediately.
Regards,
Gabe Newell
President, Valve
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
Are you actually trying to make a living out of this "game journalist" gig? Is it working?
It's not working very well because I read about this a couple of days ago. Then again online journalism does seem to be all about rehashing something someone else wrote about last week.
Even though you can argue about Steam as DRM, I love what Valve is doing as far as consumer-relations. "Pirated our game? It's OK, we'll give you more incentive to buy it instead of pirating it." Gabe Newell is a trailblazer in the video games frontier, and I'm glad we have him.
I wish punkbuster worked as hard as Steam at keeping cheaters offline and making up for their mistakes. I'd get all my games for free and I wouldn't get kicked as often.
Valve's PR is so good that some people were complaining on the official forums that VAC didn't erroneously ban them - they wanted a free game.
I'm slightly confused as to how being banned from online servers has anything to do with DRM, given that a game with no DRM could still implement a similar anti cheat system to Valve's VAC.
Assuming MW2 works anything like the Valve games with VAC (I'm thinking this may be unlikely as it has no dedicated servers), when you get VAC banned your account is prevented from playing on VAC secured servers (although the unsecured servers tend to be crap and full of people using cheats).
Aah VAC is not DRM, my ignorance got ahead of me!
I mean sure, people got banned but that would only be serious if the bans couldn't be undone or something. They got banned, they got unbanned. No problem. Same basic effect as if the servers had crashed or their net connection had died.
It wasn't a serious problem because they dealt with it. The free game (two actually, they gave it to the people and gave them a copy to gift to a friend) is good PR, and should help smooth everything over.
I don't mind that companies make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. Anyone who demands perfection all the time is a moron. All I ask is that they acknowledge and fix their mistakes, which was done here. The free game was a good call, to settle people down, especially since many gamers act like an interruption of their gaming is the end of the world.
You make it sound like the block is a personal favour, and that giving you a game is useless, since you have no qualms about picking it up for free. Put short, you don't sound like you're owed an apology or restitution.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Does this mean that L4D1 might stop mysteriously disconnecting me under wine?
As good a move as this I can't help but wonder about the comments made by volunteers moderators on the SPUFs (Steam Powered User Forum) about how "VAC doesn't make mistakes", how bans were permanent and indisputable, etc.
I wasn't on the receiving end of one of these bans myself but if I had been I would've felt pretty aggreived to be tacitly labelled a cheater and that my account "was gone", with moderators talking about a computerised system being impossible to fool and never wrong, etc.
1) You should challenge it, and ask for evidence, dates, times.
2) You could easily have had your password sniffed, possibly even from an uninstalled version of Steam, if you got a virus/spyware in the meantime - many of them lift your details right out of the registry/filesystem because a Steam account is a very valuable commodity. They don't need to "crack" anything - if they have read-access on your computer, they can lift your username/password if you got Steam to memorise it. Once they got banned on your account, they probably wouldn't bother to use it again, either. This sounds even more likely if you claim never to have played HL2 multiplayer yourself beforehand.
3) The terms and conditions say that once you're banned, you're banned, unless you can provide proof your account was hacked. That may be "unfair", but you agreed to it when you signed up.
4) You can't really expect Valve to distinguish between "someone else used my account and got me banned" and "I'm a cheater and claim the same". Thus, if any cheating is detected, your account is banned. Otherwise every cheater would say that and VAC would be useless.
5) Losing your online nickname? That's quite pathetic. If you'd been playing lots of multiplayer and built up lots of admin access, stats, etc. on your STEAM_ID, then I could understand that but what would you have done if the original Steam account hadn't been able to use your nickname because someone else was? It's not a big deal at all. At least you could move any Steam friends you had over to your new account, if that's what you wanted to do.
6) The multiplayer Steam games have been dirt-cheap for ages. The Source Multiplayer pack is currently $29.99 which is a drop in the ocean for a serious gamer. That's half the price of a modern console game, or for the same price you could get the Counterstrike pack which contains the original CS, CS:CZ and CS:Source. Or CS Classic on its own is only $9.99. If you were that worried about it, you could have just re-purchased the games.
Your banning was not Valve's mistake, unless you can prove otherwise. Did you ask for logs, did you ask for the exact cheat used, when and from what IP? Valve have that sort of info to hand and could have helped you but the chances are you had your credentials lifted, either by a friend or some malware, and your account was banned. For a game that you could rebuy for $9.99 if you really wanted it.
It sounds more like you hardly ever used Steam, hardly ever played any Steam games. If I were you, I'd have asked for logs, I'd have searched the online cheater-list websites for my STEAM_ID and if it was really that big a deal, start writing letters, demanding proof and/or just rebuying the games.
RTFM: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138233
1) Bans cannot EVER be appealed.
2) Getting hacked is not a defense.
The only reason Valve took action at all in this case was because being iron-fisted and letting the bans stand would have been a PR catastrophe.
I would be more inclined to believe you if you were not an Anonymous Coward.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
and what will valve do for MW2 players who have already gone out and bought a new copy to continue playing? That is, after all, the only option that valve says is open to people who get banned by VAC.
FGD 135
No, only for games that have the same engine. So if you are caught cheating on games based on the Source engine, you end up flagged as a cheater on all Source-based games you own.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
...please take note from Valve's fine example of good customer service.
"We fucked up, we're not going to bullshit our customers, and here's quite a nice present to say we're sorry".
I'm not a fan of games companies as a rule, but kudos to Valve for demonstrating that they care about their customers.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
4GB, originally $50 (now $30 I think) game.
And yet I'm supposed to believe there's a massive production cost on digital downloads particularly when it comes to selling a 5MB ePub or 5MB song (that I am not allowed to download again if I lose the song).
I originally did not agree with Valve's tactics but the reality is they're becoming benevolent and good with their business. I just wish the versions of games they sold did not have the same anti privacy measures built into the games as the hard copy versions.
THIS is how you handle an issue. You don't wait for a 50,000 posts 1600 pages long thread of disgruntled customers swearing they will never play your game again to form, only to tell people later that you've got "exciting new changes coming in the future" in the same breath as announcing that the unilateral change is getting overturned.
Sounds to me like this could also give a ban to someone who had bad RAM. One bit wrong in an area that gets a signature check and you're gone. Doesn't even have to be bad RAM, if a cosmic ray flips a bit.
Better run that memtest86 NOW.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
One of my gripes with Valve is they have always claimed that VAC *never makes mistakes* and that VAC bans are absolutely permanent with no chance of appeal.
I'm glad they were able to admit that yes, VAC can make mistakes and nothing is perfect. Maybe they will re-think their uppity "VAC is flawless. Bans are forever. Sorry." policy now.
Heck, they won't even reverse VAC bans for people who get their accounts hacked. How wrong is that?
If anyone doesn't want it or already have the game. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I joined a game and it was really wierd peopel were floating around and running fast. after the match i was level 70 and had all guns! Help!!!!
This isn't surprising to me. Last Christmas I acquired a for pay hack, I revered it and removed the need to login and phone home (read, made it free), it spanned about 6 games, some Steam some PunkBuster. I sent an email to Steam, sent one to EvenBalance to inform them that I had this and was interested in submitting it to them for dissemination and inclusion into their detection engines. Next day heard from EvenBalance they wanted it, so I sent it. 3 days later that cheat was detected in all PB enabled servers. To this day no word from Steam. I reposted my frustration to the Steam message boards hoping for some kind of interest, I was met with random flames of the type "what makes you think they need or would want your help", and quite literally "VAC software doesn't make mistakes". Those are directly quoted from the threads. Anyone who has visited the Steam boards knows the latter is true from all the people that post about being banned and claiming innocence. So my response, I took the loss on the money I spent for MW2 and quit playing it. I actually jumped in a server a few weeks ago for 3 minutes, it was obvious the cheating going on, when you are kitted out with UAV jammer and watch on kill cam where someone is watching you through a wall walk crouched (read silent) not run through a hallway. Yeah VAC works.[sarc tags] So I'll stick with games that don't require VAC, those that do require VAC I'll only play if they are fully Co-Op and not VS.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
What if my 9 year old was banned while playing something like Build-a-Lot 3. "Sorry about that Billy. Here's a free copy of a game rated MA. Shhhh....don't tell your parents".
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
If you get banned on Steam for cheating in one game, you get banned from playing any online game on a server that is VAC secured. So these MW2 bans actually caused customers to be banned from all their steam games, not just MW2. Granted, not playing games online for one weekend isn't going to kill anyone.
You'd think he would start to realize that DRM only irritates his most loyal (paying) customers. Yes, he "did the right thing" in reinstating those banned, and gained some goodwill by giving them free games, but one has to wonder at what cost. Most people will happily pay for what they use, and object to paying for stuff that they only want to try out. There are better ways to get folks to shell out $$ for your products than treating them like criminals. So, my opinion is that Steam needs to reassess their entire position on DRM with their product line.
FWIW, I worked for many years with a company that produced very expensive software. We considered DRM on our products a number of times, and actually produced some pretty effective DRM software measures. However, we realized that innocent actions and acts of God could disable our customers' systems at times that would cost them (and us) dearly. As a result, all of these "initiatives" went nowhere. What was the result? From startup until I left 18 years later, we grew from 7 people to one of the 60 largest application software companies in the world with over $200M in annual sales. Not a Microsoft or Adobe, but a respectable (and profitable) company that has the loyalty of its customers.
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
This could have been avoided if they hired software test engineers. On my tour of their office last year, I was told that they do not have QA people, but rely on internal play testing, and external betas to find bugs. As a STE, I feel this is the wrong approach. Well, you don't need to play HL2, or TF2 long before you learn how their policy doesn't work to eliminate bugs.
An external play-tester runs in to a minor bug. Does he report it? Remember that requires taking the effort to document the versions of all files involved, application configuration, server, network configuration, route trace, time, and exact sequence of operations that lead him to this failure point. It means trying to reproduce it. Oh, it doesn't reproduce? Try it three more times. Now try to reproduce it again on another machine, and another OS, and with another service-pack, with and without security hotfix AX7318. Get a network dump. Create a high quality report. Send it to the correct group. Once it is reported fixed, try to reproduce it again. And again. Or just igore the minor bug, and play play play. That's what I thought.
An external play-tester runs in to a major bug, like the servers are lying about the number of players on it, or any number of disconnected issues. How did this crap get released on the public? Why are we seeing big bugs on a mature product? Oh yeah, I remember now, they don't have automated regression tests, long-haul stress tests, code coverage tests, fault injection tests, low-memory testing, dropped or currupt packet testing, network jitter testing, every-controller (gamepad, joypad, stick) testing, component testing with mocks, installation and un-installation, and upgrade testing, admin and non-admin account installation and application execution tests, integration tests, fuzz testing, version verification test, and verification verification testing. They don't have exhaustive test plans, and accountability for quality. They have you and me, and the hope that one of us will find and report all the bugs.
Now, I could investigate these bugs, and send them in, and hopefully the product will improve, as I do for my employer. On the other hand, they refuse to hire people in my profession. So, do I document these errors? Hell no. Do I play their buggy games? Sometimes, when my frustration tolerance is high.
-Scott
Party A accuses party B of breaching contract
Party A uses this to activate penalty terms
Party B requests proof of breach from party A
Party A refuses to provide proof.
I wonder how often Valve defaults on, or quietly settles, lawsuits.
FGD 135
Insert "How's Episode 3 coming along?" comment here. Also, isn't Valve admitting bugs in VAC one of the four horses of the apocalypse?
Boredom is bliss.
When I spent a lot of time playing Starcraft 1, I liked the single-player mode as much as Battle.net multiplayer.
Single-player campaigns or custom scenarios were a totally different game.
And I admit that I was bad enough that I was often challenged enough by the AI, and too rushed by good multiplayer people.
Not to mention the join-and-drop people and the extra-resource maps and assorted other little issues
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
For me the biggest thing that valve did with this apology was give a DETAILED ACCOUNT OF WHAT WENT WRONG, and how it was fixed. The the L4D2 giveaway is just icing, a nice gesture.
Most companys would have flat out refused to admit it was their problem, nevermind apologise.
Well, Bart, your uncle Arthur used to have a saying: "Shoot 'em all and let God sort 'em out."