Valve announced on Wednesday that it has updated the RMR tournament rules regarding instances of cheating and banning players for VAC. Users who have been previously banned will now be allowed to participate in Valve-sponsored events if at least five years have passed since the time of the offense. But this will only apply to cases where the ban was not related to participation in Valve-sponsored competitions, including qualification tournaments.
Representatives of the company explained that this section of the rules has not been updated since CS: GO first started gaining popularity. But now there are players who have gotten a VAC ban as long as eight years ago, and so the company has decided to give them the opportunity to return to playing in major tournaments. Such an innovation turned out to be good news for cyber athletes, who received a ban even before professional performances. Since the ban was previously a lifetime ban, it could be a significant setback to a player's career. The most famous case of this kind – is the story of Vincius «vsm» Moreira, who received a VAC ban in 2013 when he was still 13 years old. Finnish eSports player Elias «Jamppi» Olkkonen also unsuccessfully tried to get his ban lifted in 2020 and was eventually forced to leave for Valorant.
Valve's decision will probably reduce the number of such cases. At the same time, the company noted that the removal of the ban after five years will not apply to cases where players were suspended not because of the anti-chit, but for other reasons, for example, because of match-fixing.