With the launch of CS2, Valve has decided to put its foot down against hackers. Many gamers have started to wonder whether CS2 will start issuing IP bans. If you are interested in learning more about this, you are in the right place.
To give you a brief answer, CS2 does not IP ban hackers. In other words, hackers in CS2 will not have their IP banned from CS2 servers. Let’s discuss more on this.
What is an IP Ban?
To understand how IP bans work, we must first look at what an IP (Internet Protocol) or an IP address is. We won’t get into the details to avoid making things overly complicated. Think of IP as the address of your computer on the internet. Similar to your home address that delivery services like Amazon use to figure out where to send your packages, game servers use your IP address to know where to send and receive game data.
In the same way, you can think of an IP ban as a home address getting blacklisted by Amazon. Once that happens, Amazon won’t deliver any packages to that address. Similarly, after an IP ban, a gamer won’t be able to connect to a game server. Several games use this to ban hackers and prevent them from ruining the gameplay experience of others.
Benefits of IP Bans
The problem with banning accounts, especially for free-to-play games, is that a hacker can easily create another account and start hacking again. It is one of the main issues competitive free-to-play game developers are trying to combat. However, several games have resorted to using IP bans instead of relying on account bans to get rid of hackers.
The primary benefit of implementing an IP ban is that it is almost permanent. The thing is, you can’t easily change your IP address. So, even if you switch hundreds of accounts, the game server will know it’s you since your IP stays the same. Once a hacker gets an IP ban, there is almost no way for them to start hacking again.
Drawbacks of IP Bans
If IP bans are so good at keeping hackers away, why doesn’t every game use them? Well, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows with IP bans. The problem is that an IP has no connection to an individual. You cannot tell whether it’s the hacker or a regular gamer from an IP address. Hence, an IP ban might also prevent gamers who don’t cheat from playing the game.
For example, two gamers might share a computer and internet connection to play video games if they live together. Or, a gamer might play video games in internet cafes or gaming zones. If an IP ban gets issued because of one gamer, all others who use the same computer would be penalized without having anything to do with hacking.
CS2 and IP Bans
As mentioned, CS2 does not IP ban anyone, regardless of whether they get caught hacking, smurfing, or anything else that is against the rules of CS2 gameplay. The primary reason is the one discussed above. Gamers who did not cheat or go against the CS2 gameplay rules would get penalized. The problem is worse for CS2, considering how often people play it on shared devices. Fortunately, CS2 has other preventive measures that do a good job of keeping hackers away.
Conclusion
CS2 does not IP ban hackers. There is no official report from Valve of IP bans coming to CS2, which means we probably won’t see IP bans in the game soon. Fortunately, CS2 has a strong anti-cheat system keeping hackers away from you, especially if you have Prime.
