Will valve ever forgive VAC bans?

VAC bans are permanent, non-negotiable, and cannot be removed by Steam Support . If a VAC ban is determined to have been issued incorrectly, it will automatically be removed. If you wish to discuss Valve Anti-Cheat with the community, you may do so here.

Can you get falsely VAC banned?

If a VAC ban is issued incorrectly it will be automatically removed after investigation , but Steam Support does not manually remove VAC bans applied to accounts for any reason.

How long does a VAC ban last on Steam?

Many games on Steam utilize the Valve Anti-Cheat System (VAC) or third party anti-cheat technology that can result in cheaters being banned from secure servers for multi-player games. VAC bans are permanent and cannot be removed from an account.

How many VAC bans can you get?

Technically there is no limit on how much VAC bans you can have on your Steam Account however if you one of those People who likes to collect "VAC bans", they may terminate your Community Profile/Steam Account.

How long does a VAC ban take?

It is only after a delay of " days or even weeks " that the account is permanently banned from "VAC Secure" servers for that game, possibly along with other games that use the same engine (e.g. Valve's Source games, GoldSrc games, Unreal Engine games).

Does Steam detect cheat engines?

Yes, and Yes but no. You can use it on steam games offline but anti cheat will more than likely catch you cheating most of the time and ban you. Former Meepo Of Gfaq.

Is VAC ban an IP ban?

VAC is not known to IP ban . It is highly unlikely that they do IP ban. But we have one user who says he was banned on one account, when making a second account using the same IP it was banned after he was AFK racking up gameplay hours.

What games can you get VAC banned on?

If you receive a VAC ban in Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, or all Source games, all your items will be removed from your Team Fortress 2 inventory. Steam Support is unable to restore these items. Additionally, you will no longer have access to the TF2 Store or receive item drops.

Is VAC ban worse than game ban?

VAC is Valve Anti Cheat. It's a more serious ban because it's across multiple games . Game bans are hardware bans for specific games. These are often caught with EAC or Easy Anti Cheat.

Are VAC bans removed after 7 years?

Vac bans are removed from profile pages after 7 years . Ban stays forever but it's invisible. If you get another ban, it's visible again as multiple vac bans.

Can you sell items on Steam if you are VAC banned?

Depending on the severity of the violation, you may receive a temporary or permanent trade ban. If a VAC Ban, cooldown or overwatch ban has been registered on your account, you will no longer have access to the CS:GO store, or be able to make trades for CS:GO items, and you will no longer receive item drops .

Do VAC bans affect all games?

Thank you i think it is only applied to one game. Note: Excluding the games listed above, VAC bans will only apply to the game the cheat was detected in. For example, a VAC ban in Modern Warfare 2 will not affect Modern Warfare 3.

Will VAC bans carry over to source 2?

will my vac ban carry over to cs2? Yes.

Can you play tf2 with a VAC ban?

VAC-bans can apply to multiple games, even if you didn't cheat in them . For example, users that cheat in Team Fortress 2 will be unable to play Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, and Day of Defeat: Source. VAC-banned players are still able to play on all VAC-insecure servers on any game.

Do VAC bans carry over to CSGO 2?

Yes. VAC bans, game bans, and competitive cooldowns carry over from CS:GO to Counter-Strike 2 .

Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) and Game Bans (Steamworks Documentation) (2024)

Overview

Steam provides several tools to help manage cheating in online video games. Whether you choose to integrate our anti-cheat APIs or use your own solution, make sure you give your customers proper warning that such a system exists and that you have UI ingame that clearly explains the ban.

For an introduction to anti-cheat and general best practices, we recommend that you watch the Steam Dev Days talk "Anti-Cheat for Multiplayer Games" (slides)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI7V60r7Jco

VAC

Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) is an automated system designed to detect cheats installed on users' computers. If a user connects to a VAC-Secured server from a computer with identifiable cheats installed, the VAC system will ban the user from playing that game on VAC-Secured servers in the future.

NOTE: VAC only attempts to detect cheats reported by the developer. Valve does not actively seek out cheats either automatically or through manual digging.

See the VAC Integration documentation for more details.

Game Bans

Game Bans allow you to utilize Valve’s banning infrastructure rather than implement your own ban tracking system. When you ban a player using the ICheatReportingService/RequestPlayerGameBan Web API, the ban will be publicly visible on that person's Steam profile.

Best Practices

Below is a list of best practices when using the provided Steamworks anti-cheat services. For broader anti-cheat best practices, please refer to the video above.

Running servers for your game is strongly suggested. Having a server handle game state and only transmitting game state to the user when necessary can help prevent cheating. For example only transmitting player position when necessary. The server can also be authoritative on player position and other game states to prevent speed hacking or god mode.
If your game uses peer-to-peer, each user should validate the others to prevent the host from having full control of the game state which would allow them to cheat or bypass restrictions.
When the Authentication API call ISteamGameServer::BeginAuthSession returns k_EAuthSessionResponseVACCheckTimedOut, the player should be removed from the server as VAC is unable to challenge the user or the user is in a state that would indicate they may be running a cheat.
When a user is banned or kicked they should receive clear messaging in-game explaining why they are unable to play.
Game bans are only designed to manage cheating. They should only be applied to players who gained an unfair competitive advantage when playing multiplayer versions of content and services.

Required Permissions For Editing Anti-Cheat Policies

Who can set or edit Anti-Cheat policies for my product?
Only certain publisher accounts have the necessary permissions to enable or adjust anti-cheat policies for your products on Steam. If you don't have the necessary permissions as detailed below, the best bet is to contact one of your Steamworks Administrators, which is a user within your organization that has the ability to grant permissions. A list of your Steamworks Administrators can be found on the right column of your Steamworks home page (unless you are an Administrator yourself).

The following permissions are required for a specific account in order to set or adjust anti-cheat policies for a product:

Your account must have the specific permission: "Manage Signing" for the product in question. See Managing Your Steamworks Account for more details.

Gift Restrictions

Enabling Anti-Cheat API access affects gift copies of your game!
Both VAC and Game Ban enabled games can either be bought for your own account, or gifted immediately. If you directly gift a game to someone who gets permanently banned, you won’t be able to gift that game again.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How does a VAC ban or Game Ban impact the user?
A: When a user is banned via either one of our anti-cheat services, the following happens:

The account cannot join secure servers for the AppIDs they are banned.
The ban is publicly displayed on their Steam Community profile.
The account can no longer share VAC enabled games.
If the user is accessing the game via Family Library Sharing, the ban is also applied to the actual owner of the game.

More details can be found in our customer facing FAQs: Valve Anti-Cheat System (VAC), I've been VAC banned, and Banned by Game Developer (Game Ban).

Q: Can I use bans in other games to block users from playing in my game?
A: No. VAC and Game bans should only prevent the user from playing on VAC secured servers in the game they received a ban in. A permanent ban should only be issued for your game if the user was caught cheating in your game.