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Valve Apologizes For 12,000 Erroneous Anti-Cheating Bans

Posted by Soulskill on from the making-it-right dept.

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.

24 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Customer service by bbqsrc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Customer service by GrumblyStuff · · Score: 5, Funny

      And gave them all a competing multiplayer game.... /tinfoilhat

    2. Re:Customer service by kurokame · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Also some good spin work.

      They took something about them screwing up in a moderately serious way while doing something people tend to get upset about them doing, and turned it into being about the quality of their customer service while incidentally advertising a rather expensive game. Since it's over Steam, net cost to Valve is some time by their database people fixing the thing they're probably legally liable to fix plus some bandwidth. Damage contained, plus nearly free marketing which would have cost quite a bit through traditional methods.

    3. Re:Customer service by MachDelta · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Gift it.
      Preferably in exchange for sex. Beer is good too. Cheetos will work in a pinch.

    4. Re:Customer service by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      You just get two gift copies that you can send to other people.

    5. Re:Customer service by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes I do want to play games through a service that notices there errors, fesses up to them, and compensates the users for the error. It is rare enough to find a company that acknowledges there own errors let alone go out of there way to make it right.

    6. Re:Customer service by Splab · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And did all that without even having to resort to pointing at other networks and say they have the same problem.

    7. Re:Customer service by Vorghagen · · Score: 5, Informative

      The fucking DRM is NOT what caused this issue. It was the anti-cheating software that got confused when they were in the middle of an update. I hate DRM as much as the next guy but I don't feel the need to blame it for things it has nothing to do with.

    8. Re:Customer service by yoyhed · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Whether it's beneficial to them or not, it still shows how good customer service can be conducted to benefit both the company and the consumer. Valve is one of the most community-friendly game developers, which is all the more amazing since they're such a successful company (not just a small indie developer).

      Had this happened in a previous Call of Duty game, PunkBuster wouldn't have done a damn thing about it other than releasing a patch. If anyone cries foul at Valve's generous solution, they need to take off the tinfoil hat and also realize that not playing Modern Warfare 2 for a weekend isn't so bad.

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      WHO NEEDS SHIFT WHEN YOU HAVE CAPSLOCK/ DAMN1
    9. Re:Customer service by interactive_civilian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Who honestly plays the single player version of L4D or L4D2?

      I do. I have a sucky internet connection, and most of the people I want to play with are on the other side of the planet, so unless we get a time with low traffic and find a decent server somewhere in the middle, someone gets stuck with 400ms pings, which make L4D(2) worthless.

      However, as a somewhat mindless zombie killing bit of stress relief, it is fine on the single player mode, and the characters can be quite amusing. Plus, they never shoot you in the face. ;)

      I like L4D(2) very much for both the multiplayer and the single player. Sometimes you don't want to deal with other people and just want to kill zombies. Sometimes you like the challenge of trying to get through a level on your own on Expert difficulty. Sometimes you don't want to deal with the idiots in pub games while your friends are all offline. While I agree that it doesn't really have a "strong" single player, it can still be quite an enjoyable single player experience. They actually did a good job of balancing that, rather than making it one of those games that is impossible or exceptionally boring to play on single player.

      --
      "Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
    10. Re:Customer service by rjch · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Also some good spin work.

      They took something about them screwing up in a moderately serious way while doing something people tend to get upset about them doing, and turned it into being about the quality of their customer service while incidentally advertising a rather expensive game.

      There's an old saying that it's not the fact that a company screws up that generates ill will, it's the response from the company to rectify the problem.

      This is a company that has heard that saying and has taken it to heart. Bravo.

    11. Re:Customer service by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Three options:
      -Own server(Either paid for dedicated, or just host it while you play). It'll help a bit, one less middleman, but only if the person hosting it has a good connection.
      -Console command to open the server browser, and just find a good low ping one, no hoping and praying involved. "openserverbrowser"
      -Force it to only choose servers below a set max ping. Use "mm_dedicated_search_maxping 150".

    12. Re:Customer service by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 4, Funny

      i'm having a hard time picturing a credible scenario where a woman would be prepared to have sex in exchange for a copy of a video game.

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      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
    13. Re:Customer service by Narishma · · Score: 4, Funny

      Who said anything about women?

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      Mada mada dane.
    14. Re:Customer service by Mr.+DOS · · Score: 5, Informative

      Summary's incorrect, as usual. Valve gave everyone affected a free copy of the game to gift to someone else, and a copy for themselves if they didn't already have L4D2. Essentially, Valve gave out 24,000 copies of L4D2.

  2. Actual email from Gabe by gravos · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is the actual email from Gabe that was sent out:

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    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

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    This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
    1. Re:Actual email from Gabe by MelodicMotives · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As much as I dislike the trends in super-DRM'd game distribution, you have to respect a clear, open email with no bull**** and pretty good compensation to boot.

    2. Re:Actual email from Gabe by Necroloth · · Score: 3, Funny

      *shameless begging* If anyone is kind enough to want to give their free copy, I'd appreciate it :)

  3. I Love Valve. by DoctorPylons · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  4. cheating by networkzombie · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

  5. That good by Netshroud · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  6. I don't know that I'd call it serious by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. "VAC is infallible" by Durzel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  8. VAC not so perfect after all, huh Valve? by ZorinLynx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?