Mysterious CS2 ban wave hits community

X, formerly Twitter, and Reddit are awash with comments from Counter-Strike fans waking up this morning to find an active ban account from their favorite game. Many report that this ban is unlike a VAC ban, which completely locks the account and prevents trading. According to one user on X, they could send a trade with a user with the game ban. Dust2.us tried to replicate the trading with a user experiencing a game ban from today and was unable to do so.

Among some of the affected community members is M80 Guatemalan rifler Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa. According to his steam profile, he currently is serving a game ban and according to his posts, he is not too happy about the situation.

Dust2.us talked with others who have been banned to understand the situation better. According to one player that we spoke with, the ban given was a game ban, not a VAC ban. However, while loading Counter-Strike 2 the main home screen has a light blue message at the top which reads "VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat), indicating it is not just a game ban.

Steam lists the following reasons why someone might incur a game ban:

Game bans in Counter-Strike 2 are issued when a player attempts to circumvent or interfere with game systems to the detriment of others.

Examples include:

• Cheating.

• Manipulation of matchmaking rank by deranking or falsely increasing your Skill Group.

• Botting and/or automation.

• Intentionally interfering with the normal operation of game servers or other players.

Game Bans for all of the above are not removed by Steam Support.

Those online suggest that the game bans might be due to a recent update for NVDIA GPUs, or potentially an issue with AMD processors, both of which have caused issues in the past. However, there is not enough information to find out what exactly is causing the ban. Dust2.us used a computer with both an AMD processor and a NVDIA GPU in a Competitive game, failing to receive a ban as of publication.

We will continue to update as more information becomes available.