Steam is now almost 100,000 gamers lighter after Valve wielded its ban hammer with exacting justice over the preceding week. In total, some 95, 812 cheaters and hackers were taken off of the digital distribution platform and given permanent bans to boot. This marks a new record in Valve's anti-cheat actions.
In July 2017, Valve set a record for the number of gamers banned from its Steam platform at one time with more than 40,000 wiped clean off of the service. This July however, it's gone far further, banning more than double that number in less than a week.
Some of those bans were attributed to direct action by Valve, while a large portion was also down to its automated VAC system, which peaked on Thursday, banning more than 60,000 gamers in one day. If you count game bans too, the total of banned gamers last week is even higher, reaching almost 150,000 gamers across the week.
That high a number of bans has actually resulted in some meaningful changes to the games those players tended to frequent. Gamers have reported a noticeable reduction in problematic players in CS:GO, ARK: Survival Evolved, and DotA 2, among others.
R/VacPorn has some great examples of expensive banned accounts if you want to savor in the banning a little more. One account was noted for having over $30,000 worth of CS:GO skins and now they are entirely inaccessible to the cheating owner.
