- Multiple Asian CS:GO pros and streamers handed false VAC bans.
- Reason behind these bans is still unknown but players speculate that it has something to do with '5EPlay Client'.
- So far Valve has not responded to the ongoing situation.
For quite sometime now the CS:GO community has been facing a problem with players receiving random VAC Bans without any rhyme or reason. One of the most known players to have faced this issue is Major winning Russian rifler Mikhail "Dosia" Stolyarov whose Steam account randomly got blocked for one day. This problem has now seeped into the Asian region causing havoc among the players, especially pros and streamers many of whom have now been VAC banned for almost a week without any any response from Valve.
Some of the most notable Asian players who have fallen victim to this wave of random VAC bans are Nigel “spielz” Aw, Kritthee “Geniuss” Sawatmuang, Patiphan "CigaretteS" Posri, Marcus “nephh” Tan, Thing-Xun “MrCANI“ Zhen, Tzu-hsiang “Flyking“ Cho, and more.
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Random VAC Ban Cause Trouble For Asian Pros And Streamers
The sudden wave of VAC bans which rained down on the Asian region recently seems to have affected a lot of innocent pros and streamers, many of whom even after five days of being banned have absolutely no idea as to why they were handed such a harsh punishment.
These sudden bans have had a disastrous impact on many pro players like spielz whose team ‘Huat Zai’ were disqualified from the Asian qualifiers of FunSpark ULTI 2020 as he received a VAC ban just hours before the scheduled start of their match against Beyond Esports on 6th October.
Three days later another member of his team nephh was also handed a VAC ban without any rhyme or reason. The Singaporean community rushed to support both the players calling the ban unfair while trying to make enough noise so that Valve would take notice of the situation.
One of the first pros to get VAC banned was the Thai rifler Geniuss who reported getting randomly banned on 2nd October with a photo uploaded by him reading that he had been “Permanently banned by Overwatch in CS:GO”.
However the biggest blow came when one of Thailand’s biggest CS:GO streamers and former pro player CigaretteS with over 300,000 followers on Twitch and 400,000 subscribers on YouTube also got VAC banned yesterday. He is by far the most influential personality from SEA to have been a victim to these random bans by Valve which has agitated the community even more.
Alleged Reasons Behind These VAC Bans
After a brief conversation with both spielz and Geniuss it seems that the VAC ban might have been handed to them and other players automatically, and the alleged possible reason for this happening could be a combination of them playing CS:GO on ‘5EPlay’ while streaming their game using a third-party software.
Valve does not have a problem with players using the Chinese platform to play CS:GO instead there seems to be an issue with the ‘5EPlay Client’ itself. According to a Tweet by a Chinese user when someone is using a third-party streaming software and opens CS:GO through Steam the file ‘graphics-hook32.dll’ is blocked and the user is forced to relaunch in ‘Untrusted Mode’, but apparently if the user opens CS:GO through the ‘5EPlay Client’ then the game launches in ‘Trusted Mode’ without blocking any files.
So the players are able to stream CS:GO in ‘Trusted Mode’ using third-party software's like OBS, Streamlabs, and more which should not be the case. This is the what all the VAC banned pros and streamers are assuming to be the reason behind their random bans.
No Response From Valve
Valve has so far not responded to this incident publicly or to any of the VAC banned players individually despite all of them reaching out to Valve via Twitter. Not only the players but prominent personalities like Sudhen "Bleh" Wahengbam and Jordan "Elfishguy" Mays have also tried to help raise awareness about the ongoing situation.
Some players like spielz and Geniuss have also sent an email to Valve but have failed to receive a response so far.
It has been more than a week at this point since the first case of such a VAC ban was reported in the region. Since then instead of the problem getting solved, more players have ended up getting banned. For now what other pros and streamers from the region can do is take preventive measures till Valve takes notice of this disastrous situation.
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