Last year, Valve warned Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
community server hosts that if they were using mods that provided
players with custom weapon skins the company would take action. Now,
Valve is permanently disabling Game Server Login Tokens that belong to
players who don't follow the developer's rules. Game Server Login Tokens
are required to create servers for Global Offensive. Server operators
who provide users with the opportunity to falsify inventory contents are
now going to be permanently banned from using the tokens. The user who
generated said tokens will also be permanently restricted from creating
new ones.
This is the first time Valve has taken action against mods. Counter-Strike's origins were as a mod for Half-Life,
and its official game releases have been modded for a long time. When a
player utilizes the particular mod that Valve has a problem with in
Global Offensive, it lets them equip custom gun and knife skins--some of
these skins you can find on sale in the Steam marketplace, while others
are wholly unique. Valve makes money off the skins sold in the Steam
marketplace, but it's important to note that skins gained from this mod
can only be used in that custom session--they don't carry over to the
official casual and competitive servers. The Global Offensive community
is upset over this news. Several users on the game's subreddit are saying that the freedom of custom servers was what made them great.
Although this type of mod is on Valve's naughty list, the company
doesn't have a problem with many others. Mods that grant stock, skinless
weapons and add zombies to the game are okay in its books. Valve's
Brian Lev says that the developer is okay with most mods.
"Innovation
is awesome and almost every mod we see is fine," Lev explained. "Our
only concern, as the community correctly understands, is with mods that
specifically misrepresent a player's skill group/rank or the items they
own."
You can check out the full statement on the Counter-Strike blog. Earlier this year, Valve issued life-bans to Global Offensive players who were caught fixing competitive matches.