Valve Pulls the Plug on a Massive 30,000 Steam Accounts

Valve Software has announced its latest purge against those attempting to steal games online, pulling the plug on a staggering 30,000 individual accounts on its Steam network.

This follows news that 20,000 accounts were disabled last month, with the vast majority of issues arising from various users trying to grab a copy of Half-Life 2 whilst bypassing the payment system.

“Today Valve disabled more than 30,000 Steam accounts which had been used to try to illegally gain access to Valve games without a valid purchase,” said Valve staffer Erik Johnson. “Valve takes such activities seriously and reserves the right to disable Steam accounts engaging in piracy, cheating, illegal activities, or any other activity in violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement. The accounts that are disabled today will not be reactivated.”

This news will no doubt generate some Gallic smirking over at disenfranchised publishing partner Vivendi, whose wranglings with Valve over online distribution of its products are still proceeding through the Seattle courts.