Valve cracks down on cheating in CS2 as Prime Status is no longer giftable

Valve has been cracking down heavily on cheating in CS2. For the past few months, the CS:GO successor has been facing the dire problem of hackers and cheaters ruining the game. The problem appeared to be growing by the day, with CS2 pros like s1mple also complaining about the same. Following the negative reactions from the community, Valve launched a VAC ban wave to quickly remove cheaters.

Valve has done this type of mass ban in the past as well, but the problem prevailed. This time, however, they are actively trying to limit the options of cheaters returning to the game.

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Revoking the Prime status gifting option will hamper cheating in CS2

With the VAC ban wave being implemented in full force in May, many players saw notorious elements being removed from the game. However, these elements returned quickly in the past by creating new accounts. As pointed out by CS2 content creator @Ozzny_CS2 in an X post, Valve is trying to discourage cheaters from making new accounts.

According to the X post, Valve has revoked players from gifting Prime Status to other accounts to prevent cheating in CS2. The statement from Steam Support read, "Prime Status in Counter-Strike 2 cannot be sent as a gift as of April 2024. This was a decision made by the Counter-Strike development team and we have no way of removing this restriction at Steam Support."

While this may not entirely stop cheaters from creating new accounts, it is a step in the right direction. Previously, cheaters would gift Prime Status to all their alt accounts so they could switch seamlessly if one of their accounts got banned. Gifting Prime Status to alt accounts was also abused by case farmers to start cheating in CS2.

Although gifting of Prime Status was stopped in April 2024, cheaters were still able to exploit this feature, as Valve had left the API open. But it looks like the CS2 creators are tying up the loose ends to effectively crack down on cheating. They removed the API completely in the first week of May, terminating any backdoor options to gift Prime to alt accounts.

Cheating in CS2 has become a major problem, leading to a bad name for the game. But with Valve now taking serious action toward this issue, they are also winning the trust of the player base.

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Check out other Counter-Strike 2 articles from Sportskeeda:

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• CS2 community reacts as player loses progress in VAC ban wave due to teammate
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• CS2 player calls Deathmatch "waste of time," community reacts
• How to unlock Premier in CS2