If you’re gonna cheat, you might as well do it on the cheap. That seems to be the going line of thought among would-be cheaters in games like Counter-Strike, who risk losing access to games and even their accounts if they get caught. Valve, however, has caught on to the loophole.
The day after this year’s big Steam Summer Sale wrapped up, Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) auto-detected a whopping 40,411 cheating accounts, according to Steam Database (via Dot Esports). That’s a record high, making the previous October 2016 record of 15,227 look like some dude in his pajamas with a fly swatter compared to a crack team of exterminators.
An additional 4,972 accounts got banned thanks to in-game reports, bringing the total value of skins and other digital items lost as a result of bans up to $9,580, according to tracking site Vac-Ban. Cheating, contrary to what some might tell you, does not pay.
You’re reading Steamed, Kotaku’s page dedicated to all things in and around Valve’s wildly popular PC gaming service. Games, culture, community creations, criticism, guides, videos—everything. If you’ve found anything cool/awful on Steam, send us a message to let us know.