Making mistakes is part of life, but how long are you supposed to be branded with it, like a badge of shame? When it comes to having your Steam profile flagged for cheating, where anyone can pull up your profile and see evidence of misdeeds, that length is apparently seven years. Through some poking and prodding, reddit user 4wh457 discovered that after seven years, the badge of shame disappears. You're still banned, of course, but no longer shamed.
Valve did not respond to my request for comment on this story.
Hiago Oliveira was 17-years-old when he logged onto Steam and decided it was time to answer a question he'd wondered for a while: What's it like to cheat in Counter-Strike?
"I had always been curious about it would feel like," he said.
Oliveira had been playing Counter-Strike before the game's landmark version 1.6 patch in 2003, when Counter-Strike patches became tied to Steam, and could often be found running around with a regular group of online friends. It was easy enough to cheat in Counter-Strike, and the prospect of spooking his buddies proved too tempting. It was less fun than expected.
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