This is How CS2 Bot Farms in China Look Like. Hundreds of Games Running and Anti-Cheat Not Keeping up With Bans
Valve apparently has to tighten its measures against scammers cluttering up servers.
Cheaters are currently one of the biggest problems in multiplayer games, including Counter-Strike 2. Valve had been fighting against unfair players long before the release of the latest shooter installment, partly through the VAC system. However, it seems that even the most sophisticated anti-cheat system may not suffice against bot farms.
What exactly is farming?
When it comes to bot farms, we are referring to software that aims to generate IP addresses intended for frequent interactions with specific platforms or games. In the case of CS2, they are used primarily to drop cases, as part of weekly rewards for "played" matches.
As a result, game queues are filled with non-existent players, making it difficult (or even impossible) for others to play. For instance, last year's April record of active users in deathmatches was achieved by bot farms.
VAC may not be sufficient
Gabe Follower is a Russian internet content creator, known primarily for his CS materials. A few days ago, he published a recording from inside one of the Chinese bot farms via Twitter/X, sparking a heated discussion among his viewers.
The videos in the post depict a room filled with numerous desktop computers, where bots are actively farming reward boxes. On each of the monitors, you can see many games running at once to further increase the efficiency of farming. VAC isn't completely effective - even though the system was able to ban some accounts, they were just a placeholder for what the scammers had up their sleeves.
Gabe points out that farming is highly advantageous from a financial perspective. For instance, one of the Russian programs he mentioned costs just under ten dollars. The April profits of its users exceeded USD 600,000.
As comments on the Reddit forum suggest, skins dropped from ill-gotten cases can be later sold. Some people propose that fraudsters might be getting ready to sell complete accounts with valuable content. Valve's response to additional evidence of the problematic procedure remains to be seen.
