So after the whole mod fiasco you would propably think that valve had learned their lesson? NOPE! Looks like valve is currently testing the waters to see with how much shit they can get away with now! Incident is as follows: VALVE NOW ALLOWS GAME DEVS TO PRETTY MUCH REVOKE YOUR RIGHT TO PLAY THEIR GAMES SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY DO NOT AGREE WITH YOU! At first, you propably think it is a good idea because now they can ban hackers and cheaters without valve first processing the bans. However, this is a tool that can easily be abused by people who simply dislike you! If you read the EULA for e.g. Killing Floor 2 you will find lines such as "disruptive behavior" or "bigotry" which are pretty vague! This means calling someone an "asshole" on YOUR server might make you lose your right to play the game you purchased! What can you do? Since Gabe Newell himself admitted that emails and downloading games costs Valve money, we'll email Valve to remove game bans or we will take our money elsewhere. For emails use throwaway emails like http://www.guerrillamail.com/ just so valve can't ban you for calling out their shit! Here is where you can contact Gabe: https://www.valvesoftware.com/email.php?recipient=Gabe Newell (Keep in mind that you should also use a Proxy when sending a Email since the IP will be displayed on the header of the email. Thanks to DataStorm for this!) MAKE A STAND, TELL DEVS THAT YOU WON'T ALLOW YOURSELF TO GET PUSHED AROUND!
You forget that if you use any email system, the originating IP is within the header of the email, its very simple to find who send it then. Having throwaway emails is not enough, it has to anonymize as well by not putting in the IP of the actual sender.
Thanks for the info. https://web.archive.org/web/2015043...ow-allows-devs-to-game-ban-disruptive-players http://steamcommunity.com/actions/WhatIsGameBan
Please, for the love of random fluctuations in the spacetime continuum, use your brains and think. While there is obviously room for abuse, valve will most likely have already taken steps to minimize the risks. For instance, I cannot find a single source indicating that this power is active for all devs. Plenty of articles indicating its existance, certainly. The steampage says This does not mean ALL developers have access!! Atmost, it means developers (in general) can make use of the system, provided Valve gives them access. In order to get access for a particular game, said game will almost certainly require a competitive element (as implied by the steampage). For example: The devs of Guns, Gore & Cannoli will be unlikely to have access, as this game has no muliplayer element and no leaderboards, and therefore no legitimate reason to ban players).
This is nearly not as large menace as the modding incident was (at least not yet). But there could be a potential risk hiding, if there's absolutely no control of the situation. For now there's no spontaneous threat but if the system is abused, it's most likely that people will notice and do something about it. It's always good to keep your eyes up.
Right back at you. Please refer to the sentence "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.". Valve won't do crap! You are missing the forrest for the trees! Once one developer gets away with this the others start doing it soon after! Sure Singleplayer games won't be affected but what does this have to do with anything? Fact still remains that this is an easy to abuse system which pretty much screams 'disaster'!
The game developer may be solely responsible for the decision to apply gamebans, but Valve is still solely responsible for giving that developer access to the tools required to add them (eg: admins are solely responsible for applying serverbans, but the LZ Staff still play a role in deciding who to give that power to). Given that this is an extremely powerful feature, there will no doubt be a whole host of legal hurdles to cross before getting access (ie sign this document that says "screw up, we'll take your game off the steam store and prevent you from hosting anymore content EVER. Oh and we'll sue you until the end of time")
You realize if any game developing company abuses this even in the slightest they will lose a whole lot of majority of their players meaning that they lose more money than it's worth to them.. This means not only for the time being of people not buying their current game then, but also in the future... Good word does spread... but the bad words spread a lot faster and they'll have a lot bigger issues than you think.. Doubt many companies will abuse this as it will lead to their eventual downfall. Just a personal opinion on this
And here I was excited that we can finally gameban people through Overwatch on CSGO. But I guess taking offense is now a full time job. Nothing bad should come out of this.Instead of spamming Gabe with this shit keep an eye out for actual misuse.All you accomplish by sending rage mails is devaluing actual critique. Oh and if you want an example of how to abuse admin tools on a large scale,go take a look at WarZ or ISS as it is now,as I can assure you they did not profit from mass banning their community.
People don't seem to understand what I am trying to convey so let me explain: As of right now, the wording of the "game ban" page makes it seem like developers can simply go to valve and tell them "Ban this guy!" while valve does so without any verification whatsoever! If you truly understand what this scenario implies then that should already raise some alarms. If Gabe just simply explained what this means in and what the process is like in more proper detail then we can close this case and be done with it! It is not about "whether they will do it or not", it is about the fact that they will have the power to do so! As of now, I see it as a threat and will encourage Valve to make a statement regarding this!
I still think this is a non-issue but please if such an issue arises again present it like you just did in this last post. Just please at least try to raise concern instead of sounding the alarm immediately. Instead of attacking with "FULL CAPS THIS IS WHAT IT IS THIS IS HOW YOU! CAN STOP IT" try to open a discussion first.
On the issue itself, this is the "VAC" ban of gamedev's themselves what they build in their game engine, or a external one like PunkBuster etc. Singleplayer access or non-secured access is still alowed. Valve had had mistakes with VAC bans in the past, and has repaired those (thankfully rare) incidents. That its more public now, in such a explanation page, doesn't mean its "new". Its been there for years afaik. As for keeping "vigilant" on abuse on this... well, very hard to know externally for sure on anybody. For then "trust" comes around in believing a random account owner vs the dev's that say he cheated, hacked, griefed, abused, or w/e.
I personally don't see how this can be a bad thing. Game developers have more incentive to police their own games than Valve. They also have more incentive to ensure such bans are justified and accurate, what game developer would benefit from banning members of it's own community without justification? In my eyes it means online games are going to be have less cheating going on, which can only be a good thing.