40,000 Dota 2 Cheaters Tricked and Banned
Valve has taken a strong stance against cheating in Dota 2. Recently, they tricked and banned over 40,000 accounts that used third-party software to gain an unfair advantage.
Ironically, the cheats they used were precisely the reason why they fell right into the trap set by Valve. With the latest Patch release, they installed a secret data section inside the game client. Under normal circumstances, regular players would never be able to read it. But if using illegal tools, the cheaters could access this internal data. Thus, they were exposed and immediately eliminated from the game.
“While fixing the underlying issues that made these cheats possible was a priority, we have also decided to remove these bad actors from the active Dota playerbase.
With that goal in mind, we released a patch as soon as we understood the method these cheats were using. This patch created a honeypot: a section of data inside the game client that would never be read during normal gameplay, but thatcouldbe read by these exploits. Each of the accounts banned today read from this “secret” area in the client, giving us extremely high confidence that every ban was well-deserved.”
— Valve
The company aimed to make an example out of these individuals and send a clear message that cheating would not be tolerated. Professional players won’t be an exception. They would be prohibited from all competitive events if they used such software to gain an unfair advantage.
Valve is not alone in the battle against the darker side of the gaming community. Other prominent developers, such as Blizzard, Bungie, and Riot, have also taken steps to keep their titles free of these issues. They are on the front lines to ensure everyone has a fair and enjoyable experience.
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