Valve bans more than 40,000 Dota 2 accounts for 'abusing matchmaking'

(Image credit: Valve)

Valve banned more than 40,000 Dota 2 accounts this week, doling them out to players who were found abusing the matchmaking system. The specifics of the ban wave weren't made clear in Valve's tweet, below, but smurfing seems like the most likely suspect.

We have banned over 40,000 accounts for players who were found abusing matchmaking. These bans will now appear as game bans in Steam as well as being matchmaking bans in Dota 2.February 11, 2020

Experienced players making additional accounts so they can beat up lower ranked players has been a perennial problem in Dota 2, and plenty of other games with matchmaking, and the recent bans coincide with a game update that tackles the issue.

"We are making our smurf detection system more sensitive in this update," Valve says. "This change will much more proactively target potential smurf accounts, but may on rare occasion give a normal player extra MMR."

Valve often targets large numbers of smurf accounts, like the 17,000 it banned in January last year. The accounts were found to be abusing matchmaking to get into ranked. In 2019 it also introduced changes to how the matchmaking rating was calculated and the aforementioned smurf detection system.

Cheers, Kotaku.

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Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.