(Editor’s Note: The article incorrectly stated incorrectly that the ban on associated accounts lasted three months. The ban on the phone number itself lasts three months, the ban on accounts is permanent. Thank you to Matt in the comments for correcting our mistake.)
Imagine a world where cheaters use burner phones to mask the identities of their individual Steam accounts, not unlike drug dealers, because just such a scenario could become more prevalent with a recent policy change at Valve.
Presently, if you are caught cheating in a VAC-protected game you are banned from VAC-enabled servers on that game. But what is stopping a person from buying Counter Strike: Global Offensive when it goes on sale for fifty cents (or whatever low price it hits during seasonal sales) and stocking up on 10+ accounts? Or Team Fortress 2 which is free to play? Nothing, and it is a noticeable problem in both titles.
Valve is taking on the issue two-fold: The first is to institute a matchmaking system for Counter Strike: GO that only links players whose accounts have phone numbers attached for two-factor authentication. The second is to ban any Steam account associated with that phone number if one of the accounts cheats. The bans on associated phone numbers lasts for three months, during which the number cannot be applied to any other account.
The benefit is that it is effectively impossible to buy a new phone only to find out too late that the guy who held the number before you was VAC-banned and still on probation.
(Source: Engadget)
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