Steam - MW2 Players incorrectly banned get L4D2(x2)

Overheal

http://consumerist.com/2010/07/valve-gives-unfairly-banned-players-free-zombie-game.html

To make up for mistakenly banning 12,000 Steam gamers from playing Modern Warfare 2 online, Valve served up a peace offering of up to two free Left 4 Dead 2 downloads.
Ars Technica relays the apologetic email from Valve honcho Gabe Newell:

“
"The problem was that Steam would fail a signature check between the disk version of a DLL and a latent memory version. This was caused by a combination of conditions occurring while Steam was updating the disk image of a game. This wasn't a game-specific mistake. Steam allows us to manage and reverse these erroneous bans. "We have reversed the ban, restoring your access to the game. In addition, we have given you a free copy of Left 4 Dead 2 to give as a gift on Steam, plus a free copy for yourself if you didn't already own the game."
”

Since Left 4 Dead 2 focuses almost entirely on cooperative multiplayer, the gift copy will make the game that much more enjoyable to the recipients. Kudos to Valve for more than making up for its gaffe.
Valve responds to MW2 Steam glitch with free copies of L4D2 [Ars Technica]
(Thanks, Jason!)

there you have it: VAC is not infallible

Menengroth™

Not the first time something like that has happened. Something very similar, albeit on a much smaller scale happened in CSS 3/4 years back and they ended up unbanning the accounts as well.

degrassinoel

nice to see that some big companys do care about their player base.

Sierra Oscar

VAC bans have been reversed before - on quite a few occasions.;)

seyeM

I read some of the threads on the Steam forums before Valve announced this mistake. Many threads started by people complaining about being banned in error and each thread taken over by the steam fanboy legions posting crap like:
"OMG VAC only bans for known cheats, IT'S NEVAR WRONG", and "you MUST have hacked to be banned, so deal with it".

Monotype

MW2 has been a real disaster of a game with all the trouble that's following it. Well disaster for the players etc., not the people filling the coffers from it, of course.

Krieg

Monotype wrote: »

Well disaster for the players etc., not the people filling the coffers from it, of course.

You mean these guys :P
Infinity Ward Heads Sue Activision

Monotype

Krieg wrote: »

You mean these guys :P
Infinity Ward Heads Sue Activision

Well I was counting them as part of the disaster since they they're not the ones that got rich on it (AFAIK). There must have been some serious backstabbing and dodgy things going on for that many to quit!

Kiith

Fair play to Valve for giving free copies of Left 4 Dead 2.

SeantheMan

They should have given them L4D2, and left their MW2 accounts banned :P ...what a trade off ! 2 copies of an amazing game...for giving up a retarded console port !! Yes please !

Ciaran500

So...


Anyone got a spare L4D2 they want to give away?

BlitzKrieg

seyeM wrote: »

I read some of the threads on the Steam forums before Valve announced this mistake. Many threads started by people complaining about being banned in error and each thread taken over by the steam fanboy legions posting crap like:
"OMG VAC only bans for known cheats, IT'S NEVAR WRONG", and "you MUST have hacked to be banned, so deal with it".

I wonder how much the complaining on the forum helped?

Sierra Oscar

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

I wonder how much the complaining on the forum helped?

Quite a bit I would assume - but support were investigating it in anycase as they knew something fishy was up.

Id say the complaining sped things up, but the outcome would have been the same in the end.

Wiirdo

Haha that is very nice by Valve.

Canis Lupus

I'll take L4d2 as a gift if anyone is giving it away :P