Recently, a major exploit has been circulating in Counter-Strike 2 (Steam) that arose after the Arsenal update. Anyone who has used this exploit is now facing a harsh penalty and will be banned from trading for 1 year. However, the YouTuber who made a video about the exploit, viewed by hundreds of thousands, seems to be getting away with it. His intention was merely to warn.
What is being punished here? We will not describe the exact exploit in detail here on MeinMMO, just this much:
On October 2, the largest update so far for Counter-Strike 2, “The Arsenal,” went live. You can find the patch notes here in German.
With this update, an exploit was introduced to abuse the XP system. Players opened special lobbies and threw grenades at each other in specific locations to make the matches as short as possible. This, however, ruined the matchmaking for normal players.
One of the biggest content creators for Counter-Strike 2, Anomaly, released a video on October 6: Valve needs to fix this quickly – (the biggest CS2 exploit
).
Valve bans cheaters from trading for a year
What is the penalty now? Those who exploited the exploit will be severely punished by Valve. Trading is restricted until October 1, 2025.
The message states that this is the penalty for exploiting “bugged XP lobbies” in Deathmatch.
The penalty is so bitter because trading with skins in CS:GO represents its own meta-game, which is considered lucrative and exciting.
Who does this affect? As Dotesports reports, this penalty affects numerous regular players as well as many content creators like ArrowCS, Aquaismissing, or Duwag.
He has been caught:
YouTuber with a major video on the exploit escapes unscathed
Why wasn’t he banned? However, it’s interesting that Anomaly, the largest content creator, was not punished, even though he demonstrated how the exploit works in his video. Anomaly’s video on YouTube has over 440,000 views.
On Steam and reddit there are discussions about why Anomaly was not punished:
- Some demand that Anomaly should also be banned and call it “hypocrisy” if he gets away with it. He’s only spared because he’s such a big streamer.
- Others suspect that Anomaly did not use the exploit with his main account or stayed below a certain threshold, at which point Valve would have intervened.
- A third person says: Anomaly expressed himself so diplomatically and cautiously in his video (
It looks like …
), that he still appeared educational and not as if he was explaining exactly how the exploit works.
Whoever doesn’t listen must feel
This is how it’s being discussed: The largest reddit thread on the subject is titled, loosely translated: “Those who have been banned know exactly what they did and deserve the ban. I have no sympathy for streamers crying on Twitter because they have been banned.” Overall, people are glad that Valve has taken such a hard stance.
Another major motto is “Fuck around and find out,” which means “Whoever doesn’t listen must feel.”
Steam developer Valve is known for not tolerating such exploits. Although they also seem to enjoy punishing cheaters. At Christmas 2023, they treated themselves to a special gag: Twitch streamer opens a gift in DOTA 2 and gets banned immediately: “Are you serious?”
