THOUSANDS of Steam users have had their accounts restricted on the platform for engaging with a seemingly innocuous feature.
Steam has a rating system on the store page of every game on the platform, where users can post reviews and rate other reviews for games.
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If a user posts a review, other users can rate that review, indicating whether or not it was helpful, and helpful reviews are pushed up in the list.
Unfortunately, it seems thousands of gamers who marked a specific review as helpful have had their accounts restricted.
The review was listed under the free-to-play multiplayer game Warlander, and complained about the game’s anti-cheat software, which it said was suspicious.
According to user FREEDOMS117, the anti-cheat software for the game was running even after the game was closed, which could impact resources.
The user went on to give instructions on how to remove the software, and almost 2500 people rated the review as helpful, marking it as the most helpful review of the game.
A moderator for Steam subsequently marked the review as violating the Steam terms of service, removing the review and restricting the poster’s account for 30 days.
A restricted account prevents a user from reviewing games, rating other reviews and engaging in forum discussions, but they can still play games.
It was then revealed that everyone who had marked the review as helpful also received a 30 day restriction, despite not having written the review themselves.
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A notice to affected users says: “Your account has recently upvoted a user review that was banned for attempting to scam users or other violations of Steam’s Rules and Guidelines.”
When made aware of the issue, Steam Support told the original poster FREEDOMS117 that the ban was made in error, and that they should not have been restricted for it.
Steam Support said: “Our moderators watch for content that describes how to cheat or describes how to tamper with anti-cheat systems.
“Those are against our rules, and it looks like that is what our moderation team incorrectly identified with this case, leading to the banned review.”
Warlander’s publisher explained that the reason the anti-cheat software looked like it was still running was because of a bug, and that it’s not dangerous.
Steam has since unrestricted all the affected accounts, but users should be warned that simply marking a review as helpful could potentially lead to a ban in some instances.
Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.
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