Valve Sends Out "Holiday Gifts", Turns Out They're Perma Bans

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It's officially the holiday season, and just like every year, publishers and developers have been handing out freebies to their loyal players as thanks for sticking around for so long. Valve is no exception, giving free cosmetic armor to Dota 2 players as part of the game's Frostivus 2023 event. Unfortunately for some, Valve has also been keeping a naughty list, and decided to give some of Dota 2's more mischievous players a special gift of their very own.

Instead of some free cosmetics, those that have either been smurfing or sharing their accounts with third party services have been getting a big, fat lump of coal instead. To make matters worse for the offending player, this lump of coal also comes with a permanent ban too, with less severe lumps of coal with warnings dished out to the main accounts of these individuals.

While these "presents" have been dished out to a number of Dota 2 players, the most high-profile example comes from Twitch streamer MasonDota2, who opened their gift and ate their ban while streaming. You can find the clip of the moment here, in which MasonDota2 is greeted by a "Highly Toxic Lump of Coal" and the realization that their account had been permanently banned.

MasonDota 2 went on to try and explain away his actions on the official Dota 2 subreddit, claiming that he's never cheated or abused a big during his 13 years playing Dota, but admitted to buying a behavior score booster that he only used for one out of ten days before feeling guilty and getting rid of it.

Hey everyone, Mason here, about my ban and how I'm feeling:
byu/iceQueen97 inDotA2

While you may think this is pretty harsh, Valve warned players that it would be coming at cheaters pretty hard this year, describing this recent wave of bans as a "bloodbath" in a new blog post. It stated that players will be receiving punishments, no matter how bad they've been, as it wants matches to be as fun and clean as possible heading into 2024.

Valve definitely wasn't lying about the "bloodbath" part, and disguising permanent bans as holiday gifts for cheaters and smurfers to unknowingly open is deceptively brilliant. All you can do is just sit back and admire the audacity of it all, even if you're not allowed to play Dota 2 anymore.