With a recent steam community update player profiles on steam now show whether or not the account has been VAC banned.

This has opened a huge can of worms, with many top Counter-Strike: Source players having bans on half life engine games, such as Counter-Strike. These bans do not affect games on the source engine but as far as the steam page is concerned these is no difference.

Over on our forums a list of players affected by the ban is being compiled (The accuracy of this list is by no means guaranteed), you’ll notice some big names including players inside the Championship Gaming Series and other top teams.

This puts the leagues in a very tough position, wanting both a strict and clear cheating policy which scales down right to the amateur ladders, while keeping the top players as active players in their leagues.

One such league which previously operated a “zero tolerance” policy is Enemy Down, a league which has made huge progress recently with top events for top teams. That all now hangs in the balance based on a decision potentially affecting the final of the Eurokrieg grand final, with eXce of xoxo apparently playing on a banned steam account. Enemy Down have assured me they’ll be releasing their verdict very soon, and we’ll be looking to chase up other leagues for their policy.

We have gathered opinions from some of the top players in the game.

RegnaM of Nameless:

As former 1.6 player, I can't understand how people could make a link between two different games. Even Valve makes a difference with their ban system. In my opinion, people should leave banned players alone, top players or not, the fact is they are playing CSS now, not 1.6 anymore. Don't ban them for past cheating on a different game.

Delonge of Logitech:

The main thing for me is where the ban came from. If it’s a top LAN proven source player who cheated on a 1.6 public back in 2005 then who gives a shit. On the other hand if the ban was on source based games I think that player should be banned from online competitions. For example I cheated on a private LAN server with Samitsky and my brother in Counter-Strike 1.6, should I be banned?

Rytme of xoxo:

I'm with RegnaM on this one. I absolutely don't get how on earth people can judge players who are banned in a whole different game. Of course I'm against all kinds of hack, but if someone hacked in WoW how could you ban them from CS:S tournaments? And the thing with eXce is just outrageous. When he started playing CS:S with inCre 2 years ago, he was a 1.6 player and he didn't have CSS on his account.

He had a friend who had a "spare account" with CS:S on it. The thing was, that it was banned in 1.6 and his friend was never going to use the account again because of that. Of course eXce accepted the offer. I've been playing some 1.6 with him a couple of months ago and he used his original account which isn't banned in 1.6. He's been upgrading his original account so now it has CS:S on it aswell.

Who would of thought that VALVe would make such a stunt only to get more people to buy their products.

Ritch of London Mint:

Well this is a pretty difficult situation for any group of admins to be in; especially after you look at it like this...

Take this for example, this steam update came and only a group of between 2 and 10 people got VAC Banned, there is definatly going to be action taken there and all of them would be banned. The only reason everyone isn't banned now is simply there is way too many people..

Then you can look at it like this; 50% of those people are top players, probably banned on 1.6 and good at LAN events and on Anti-Cheat. The only reason people want them banned is so they can laugh at them for it. eXce is the main culprit here and lets be honest, proven player time and time again and you're just jealous of his position in Source and want him to get banned because you're not him.

If these players are banned it only shoots the scene back down and stops the scene from growing which is what the UK always gets blamed for.

Leave everything as it is and stop being jealous of the people who achieve.

What do YOU think? Should leagues apply one rule for everyone? Should top players be made example of? Vote below in the poll and discuss your opinions in the comments.