Dota 2 News

Today, we permanently banned over 40,000 accounts that were using third-party software to cheat in Dota over the last few weeks. This software was able to access information used internally by the Dota client that wasn't visible during normal gameplay, giving the cheater an unfair advantage.

While fixing the underlying issues that made these cheats possible was a priority, we have also decided to remove these bad actors from the active Dota playerbase.

With that goal in mind, we released a patch as soon as we understood the method these cheats were using. This patch created a honeypot: a section of data inside the game client that would never be read during normal gameplay, but that could be read by these exploits. Each of the accounts banned today read from this "secret" area in the client, giving us extremely high confidence that every ban was well-deserved.

The prevalence of this family of cheats means that today's ban wave is particularly large, but it's only the latest action in an ongoing campaign. While the battle against cheaters and cheat developers often takes place in the shadows, we wanted to make this example visible, and use it to make our position clear: If you are running any application that reads data from the Dota client as you're playing games, your account can be permanently banned from playing Dota. This includes professional players, who will be banned from all Valve competitive events.

Dota is a game best enjoyed when played on an even field, where victories are earned by skill and tenacity. We expect that some players will continue to develop and use new exploits, to continue to try to gain unfair advantages at the expense of other players. As before, we will continue to detect and remove these exploits as they come, and continue to ban users who cheat.

Lastly, we'd like to thank those who offered their time and energy to help us resolve this — from those who reported a player acting suspiciously in-game, to those who reviewed overwatch cases where this behavior was observed. Thank you for helping to make Dota a better experience for everyone.

The 2023 DPC Winter Tour regional showdowns have nearly concluded, and soon the top 18 teams in the world will converge on Peru to compete in the culminating event of the first tour: The Lima Major, presented by 4D Esports. As the first-ever South American DPC Major, we are excited to share the excitement of live Dota with an eager audience of long-standing fans.

Dota fans everywhere can catch all the action online as the Group Stage runs February 22 - 26, setting the stage for the Playoffs to follow February 28 - March 5. Dive into all of the tournament teams and standings throughout the event at www.dota2.com/esports.

[h2]Supporters Club Sale[/h2]
As the Major approaches, show your fan pride and unlock custom equippables by purchasing your favorite team's Supporters Club, now 75% off until the end of the Winter Tour. As always, 50% of every Supporters Club sale goes directly to the team.

[h2]Fantasy & Player Cards[/h2]
With the conclusion of the regional leagues and the start of the Major, Fantasy has been adjusted for the different format. As with the previous Majors, Player Card packs now contain only players from Major-qualified teams, and Fantasy will run daily instead of weekly. If you're new to Fantasy or just need a refresher, check out this Fantasy rundown from the start of the Tour.

[h2]Looking Ahead[/h2]
Once the Major Champions have been crowned and the Tour comes to a close, we look forward to unveiling our next update on March 6th.