It’s not that easy being blue.
Valve announced today that the company plans on banning smurf accounts in Dota 2. The news comes on the heels of today’s update introducing a number of streamlined features to help new players enter and enjoy Dota 2.
Starting today, smurfing will be a bannable offense. We will primarily focus on new accounts created after today for which we have high confidence in their smurfing and game-ruining behavior. Moreover, we will also occasionally manually ban old pre-existing accounts that are clearly game-ruining. Furthermore, if you are found to be selling accounts, boosting or engaged in similar game ruining behaviors, your primary account may also be subject to a ban. To go along with this, we’ve recently increased our ban rate for boosters and purchased accounts.
Smurfs are alternate accounts created by experienced players in games where matchmaking prevents them from being put up against new, less experienced players. Smurf accounts are used for a variety of purposes but most often for boosting accounts or simply for trolling and ruining the game for new players.
Opinions on smurfing range greatly across the gaming community, but more and more developers appear to be taking a hardline stance against the practice. Riot Games bans smurf accounts in Valorant. Ubisoft bans smurfs in Rainbow Six Siege. Epic has been known to ban smurfs in Fortnite. Dota 2 itself played host to tens of thousands of banned accounts under “matchmaking abuse”.
Today’s announcement formally confirms what has essentially already been against the rules, with some extra caveats.
MMO Fallout 