Submission + - Steam VAC ban story, what do YOU think? 2
choke writes: "On or about 3 and a half years ago my then pre-teen son used an external program which caused him to get a "VAC Ban" on a game in my steam account.
The odd result, was that Valve banned -all- games on this particular account which used the same middleware as this game, which resulted numerous games being banned. Games which I had paid for in good faith, and had no record of violation. Furthermore, all FUTURE games that may be released with this middleware are also banned on this account.
Before I am duly excoriated for letting someone else use my account and whatnot, I should say that as a parent and at that time, I was hesitant to have my preteen child maintaining his own friends list and making arbitrary contact with the public, hence I would let him use my account on occasion. Steams parental controls are not particularly useful in that regard.
I won't defend the actions that got banned — I agree with the ban however, valve has chosen to exercise their power to also remove functionality from other paid games on my account, with zero recourse after numerous attempts to remedy the situation other than to 'purchase a new account' and repurchase -all- of the games which use this particular middleware.
This led me to think that if I had purchased those games elsewhere, I would not have lost access to them. And it made me hesitate when I thought of buying more games on Steam.
What do YOU think? Was it my just desserts for letting a child use my account? Are there other ways this could be handled by Valve?"
The odd result, was that Valve banned -all- games on this particular account which used the same middleware as this game, which resulted numerous games being banned. Games which I had paid for in good faith, and had no record of violation. Furthermore, all FUTURE games that may be released with this middleware are also banned on this account.
Before I am duly excoriated for letting someone else use my account and whatnot, I should say that as a parent and at that time, I was hesitant to have my preteen child maintaining his own friends list and making arbitrary contact with the public, hence I would let him use my account on occasion. Steams parental controls are not particularly useful in that regard.
I won't defend the actions that got banned — I agree with the ban however, valve has chosen to exercise their power to also remove functionality from other paid games on my account, with zero recourse after numerous attempts to remedy the situation other than to 'purchase a new account' and repurchase -all- of the games which use this particular middleware.
This led me to think that if I had purchased those games elsewhere, I would not have lost access to them. And it made me hesitate when I thought of buying more games on Steam.
What do YOU think? Was it my just desserts for letting a child use my account? Are there other ways this could be handled by Valve?"
