The figure is impressive and sounds like a warning. Valve announced on Friday, February 24, that 40,000 accounts had been permanently banned for using third-party cheat software in Dota over the past few weeks. And to flush out those 40,000 cheaters, Valve used a bait.
The company has learned of the existence of software allowing access to information in normal times intended for internal use by the Dota client, this information being usually invisible to players. It then deployed a patch containing a decoy, a section of data added to the game client that might only be read by cheat software. A method that made it possible to identify with certainty the accounts that had access to this “secret” section of the game, and to carry out a major cleaning.
Valve wants to be intractable
“Given the magnitude of this type of cheat software, today’s wave of bans is significant in sizedetails Valve in a press release. However, this is only the latest action in an ongoing battle once morest the teams that develop such software and the people who use it. This happens behind the scenes, but we wanted to use this example to clarify our position: if you use any app that reads Dota client data in mid-game, your account may be subject to a permanent ban from Dota. This also concerns professional players, who will no longer have the right to participate in Valve’s competitive events.”.
Dota 2a battle arena-type multiplayer online video game, is one of the leading titles in esports, with millions of dollars at stake. Valve notably organizes a competition called The International, whose 2021 edition featured a prize pool of $40 million. Dota 2 is one of the most popular games on Steam, with over 13 million monthly players.
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