Officially announced today, Developers can now use their own detection system to identify and permanently ban anyone using cheats in their games. Obviously, Steam is a major platform, so outsourcing this task to individual game studios makes sense. More so, it gives developers a better sense of control over the matter at hand.
According to reports by IGN, game developers will notify Valve when they’ve detected a cheating player, and Valve will ban that account permanently. This applies to all games, even those not enforced with the Valve Ani-Cheat (VAC) System.
Of course, this is occurring right after Valve’s paid mods issue, in which paid Skyrim mods were removed due to community uproar. While Valve’s intentions were to pay mod creators, players and mod creators alike didn’t much agree with the 25% revenue. More so, they didn’t like the idea of paying for a mod that could potentially break, and have no solution or refund.
It seems Valve is making some pretty important changes. About their new banning system, they released a Steam Community announcement:
“The game developer is solely responsible for the decision to apply a game ban. Valve only enforces the game ban as instructed by the game developer.”
This does bring up two points of notice, however. The first being that Valve is covering their backs, letting it be known now that they will simply be following developer orders. The other point is, of course, the fact that there could be abuse involved here. Many reports are already speculating potential developers may get power hungry with the “banhammer.”
This is an interesting point, since the definition of cheating can mean something different to everyone. It has been stated that developers will now handle disputes themselves, so if a player has a dispute with a developer, they could use the “banhammer.”
As of now, everyone is speculating how this situation will work, and if it will work effectively, or cause more issues. What is clear is that there is plenty of mixed opinions. Some claim Valve is being passive, handing developers responsibility they don’t want to handle themselves, but others see it more as Valve giving developers more control over their own games, which in and of itself, sounds like a developer’s dream.
No one knows whether developers will get “banhammer happy,” but as an indie developer myself, let’s say everyone is different. Some game studios may break under the pressure of power, but others will definitely know how to use it, and when. This may actually be…a good thing.