Valve’s anti-cheating software VAC malfunctioned over the weekend, resulting in the accidental banning of more than 12,000 Modern Warfare 2 players. Instead of simply apologizing, however, company president Gabe Newell did perhaps the coolest thing a video game company president has ever done: he apologized and gave everyone impacted two free copies of Left 4 Dead 2 – one to keep and one to give to a friend.
Here’s the full text of the email that he sent out.
Hello,
Recently, your Steam account was erroneously banned from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
This was our mistake, and I apologize for any frustration or angst it may have caused you.
The problem was that Steam would fail a signature check between the disk version of a DLL and a latent memory version. This was caused by a combination of conditions occurring while Steam was updating the disk image of a game. This wasn’t a game-specific mistake. Steam allows us to manage and reverse these erroneous bans (about 12,000 erroneous bans over two weeks).
We have reversed the ban, restoring your access to the game. In addition, we have given you a free copy of Left 4 Dead 2 to give as a gift on Steam, plus a free copy for yourself if you didn’t already own the game.
To share your extra copy of Left 4 Dead 2 with a friend, you can ‘Manage Gifts and Guest Passes’ from the ‘Games’ Menu in Steam, or visit this article on the Steam Support site for detailed instructions: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4502-TPJL-2656.
To access your own copy of Left 4 Dead 2, visit your library of games in Steam. If you didn’t already own the game, it will now be listed among your others there, and is available for download immediately.
Regards,
Gabe Newell
President, Valve
Newell is a freakin’ saint, if you ask me.
This is why I own every Valve game ever made.
Amen to that!
word. dont know wtf i would do with 2 free copies, everyone i know owns l4d2 already…
hah, and they insisted that vac NEVER makes mistakes. at least they made up for it. im no mw2 liker at my finsest moment, but i dont see why they can’t just rstore the game to them/ unban them
There’s still 12,000 people playing that POS Modern Warfare 2? They deserve to be banned just for that.
OH WAIT herpaderp disregard i sipped the part where they said that they restored it.
Wow. Now THAT’S how to treat customers.
Very clever them giving two copies. most people and their friends have it already but it looks and sounds brilliant in PR.
Also, it’ll get more people playing L4D2 again/for the first time and possibly checking out the DLCs which, presumably, didnt come with the copy.
Also, it’s just a really fucking decent thing to do!
there’s only 1 dlc, and its free for pc gamers
@Squirl there is one DLC for L4D2 and its 100% free, so no issue there either.
This, among many other reasons, is why Valve>all other game companies. While others are busy trying to find more ways to screw the customer out of a few more dollars and break their games to prevent piracy, here’s Valve once again getting it right by putting their customers first.
This is pure class. Way to go Valve!
Valve always seems to do things right, these days.
I really don’t know what to say that hasn’t been said, but my favourite part of this is simply the accountability. Rather than mumble that “mistakes were made,” taking full responsibility, apologizing, and making *any* attempt to make things right is such a correct and decent thing to do, it’s almost a foreign bloody concept.
Free gift or no, my utmost regards to Gabe and to Valve.
Very nice gesture, I volunteer to be a friend of anyone with a free copy
It’s a very nice gesture, but he also needs to fix the Source SDK, so that mods that were made for HL2 and the like will work again.
then he will be a god.