Valve banned 960,000 farming bot accounts in Counter-Strike 2 on March 26, 2026, according to CS2 project lead Ido Magal. The figure is not a count of accounts banned across all Steam games, and it does not mean every account received a Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) ban: contemporaneous coverage says many received game bans instead.
What Valve said about the ban wave
On March 27, 2026, Magal described the action as having happened “yesterday,” putting it on March 26. He wrote: “Yesterday we banned 960,000 farming bot accounts.” He added that the action followed investigations that benefited from user reports, and thanked players who reported suspected bots. Magal’s comment is the primary source for the count and his description of the investigation.
The context is Counter-Strike 2 farming bots—not a Steam-wide ban total spanning unrelated games. PCGamesN’s March 27 coverage likewise reports the action as a CS2 ban wave.
Were these VAC bans or game bans?
Many accounts in the wave reportedly received game bans rather than full VAC bans, according to PCGamesN’s coverage. The reporting does not provide a complete count split by ban type, so it is inaccurate to describe all 960,000 as VAC-banned.
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Valve’s Steamworks documentation says a Game Ban prevents an account from joining secure servers for the affected AppIDs and is displayed publicly on the account’s Steam Community profile. Valve describes Game Bans as a tool for managing cheating that creates an unfair competitive advantage. Those are the general mechanics of Game Bans; Valve has not published a wave-specific breakdown showing which restrictions applied to every account. Steamworks: Anti-cheat and Game Bans
How players could report suspected farming bots
In his statement, Magal said user reports helped the investigations and gave this reporting route: email [email protected] with the subject line “Farming Bot Report.” This is the contact information he supplied at the time; it should not be treated as confirmation that the address or process remains current.
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What Valve’s rules say about automation
Valve’s Steam Subscriber Agreement treats accounts as personal, prohibits account sales or transfers, and prohibits automation used to interact with Steam. It also allows Valve to restrict or cancel accounts for violations. These terms provide general policy context, but they do not disclose the detection criteria used in this CS2 action or establish that every banned account violated a particular provision.
Valve has previously discussed farming incentives in a separate context: a historical explanation of Steam Trading Cards said fake activity could distort Store recommendations and described delaying card drops until a confidence measure indicated genuine purchases and play. That older explanation does not establish the specific motive or enforcement method behind the 2026 CS2 wave. Valve’s Trading Card farming explanation
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What the 960,000 figure does—and does not—show
The figure establishes the number of farming bot accounts Magal said Valve banned. It does not show how many bans were VAC bans, how long enforcement effects lasted, or whether bot activity, case supply, prices, or player experience changed afterward. The cited accounts do not provide before-and-after measurements for those outcomes.
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