Valve now lets developers permanently ban Steam users from a game

Valve has implemented a new "Game Ban" policy on Steam, allowing game developers to permanently ban Steam users from individual games, the company announced recently.

Through the game ban initiative, Valve is allowing developers to run their own systems to "detect and permanently ban any disruptive players, such as those using cheats," according to a Steam Community page that explains what a game ban is. This is separate from Valve Anti-Cheat, the technology that is already built into Steam.

If a developer discovers a player who is cheating, the company notifies Valve, which issues the game ban on the player's Steam account for that particular game. Until now, only Valve has been able to root out cheaters and ban them.

"The game developer is solely responsible for the decision to apply a game ban," Valve noted. "Valve only enforces the game ban as instructed by the game developer."