Proposed Removal Of VAC From All HalfLife Game Servers.

We the undersigned are requesting that Valve Software forfeit design and deployment of their anti cheat tool, Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC), or to contract anti-cheat development to a company that has proven themselves to be effective in anti-cheat development. All petition signatures are in favor for Valve Software to follow through, and reasons explained below are valid points concerning Valve Software and how they have taken unfair steps to end multiplayer game cheating.

Since VAC has been integrated into the dedicated server for HalfLife and it's game modifications, more and more honest players are being banned from playing on servers running in secure mode. The ban placed upon these individuals has an expiration date which ends in 2008. With the advancement in the computer and software industry, this game will be technically obsolete by the time 2008 comes along. This means that a person who was falsely banned by VAC will be cheated out of playing the game on all secure multiplayer servers.

Valve Software, in an attempt to stop cheating in their multiplayer games have decided that it is in their best interest to keep any person that has been banned for whatever reason, from playing the game that they legally purchased even if a ban was placed on an individual that does not cheat. With the purchases of HalfLife and all retail mods made, it has funded their future development and paid their employees. With these steps that have been taken, Valve Software has decided to steal from the individuals that have bought their software and their right to use it.

Valve Software is concerned with people taking away the fun of others by cheating, but to put an end to cheaters they are also putting an end to honest and legitimate players being able to connect to game servers and enjoy the game that they purchased. People who may have certain hardware configurations, DSL/Cable Modem routers, anti-virus software, or other system settings risk being banned due to false detection made by Valve Sofware's anti-cheat detection.

VAC has proven to be ineffective since people are able to develop new modifications to existing cheat tools that can go undetected until a new revision of VAC is released. This also means that VAC can and has banned people for cheating, but also others that are not cheating since some of these cheat tools are based around hardware and system settings that VAC may perceive as cheat software due to the nature of how they work.

We request that Valve Software take all measures into account and comply with this petition. In the future, disgruntled players who are falsely banned because of VAC being horribly coded may file a class action lawsuit against Valve Software for denying people the right to use their legally purchased software as it was intended for use.