{"id":2661,"date":"2026-04-13T03:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T03:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/2020\/11\/23\/21591480\/dota-2-player-banned-valve-dev-disagreement-apology"},"modified":"2026-04-13T03:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T03:49:11","slug":"valve-developers-lose-ban-power-after-dota-2-disagreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/valve-developers-lose-ban-power-after-dota-2-disagreement\/","title":{"rendered":"Valve developers lose ban power after Dota 2 disagreement"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/valve-developers-lose-ban-power-after-dota-2-disagreement.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p id=\"sEWhXn\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/game\/dota-2\/2243\"><em>Dota 2<\/em><\/a> is a competitive game, and things can get infuriating for players locked into a match. Perhaps a teammate isn\u2019t listening, or you end up getting stomped by another player. Part of the game is rolling with the punches and dealing with those frustrations. One Valve employee failed to do so, and it ended up being a social media mess.<\/p>\n<p id=\"AzZLWo\">Player minijuanjohndoe <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/DotA2\/comments\/jyrnag\/got_sent_to_low_priority_by_steam_employee_in\/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3\">posted on the <em>Dota 2<\/em> subreddit<\/a>, via <a href=\"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/dota-2\/news\/valve-employee-apologizes-for-manually-suspending-dota-2-players-account\">Dot Esports<\/a>, complaining that he had been sent to the game\u2019s low-priority mode for an in-game disagreement, which serves as a temporary matchmaking ban. The poster and the Valve employee, <em>Firewatch<\/em> co-creator Sean Vanaman, were arguing about whether to rally around an objective or fall back and let it go. During the argument, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/DotA2\/comments\/jyrnag\/got_sent_to_low_priority_by_steam_employee_in\/gdao22u\/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3\">minijuanjohndoe said Vanaman got tired of the argument, and asked<\/a> \u201cDo you know who you\u2019re talking to? Check my profile, I\u2019m a Steam employee.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"J4mfHG\">Vanaman himself responded to minijuanjohndoe\u2019s post, writing:<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"15.579598145286\">\n<p id=\"t1_gda2k36\">The team looked into this case, and concluded the user clearly did not deserve the ban. Even if the user did deserve a ban however, we all think it\u2019s clear that manually banning users is not a good idea because of how hard it is to be objective in Dota games that you are in. My mistake in this case being a sterling example. As employees, we should have no special privilege when playing Dota.<\/p>\n<p id=\"QUxpTL\">That has been the team\u2019s informal policy in the past, but it has clearly failed in this case. It won\u2019t remain informal going forward \u2014 manual bans like this won\u2019t be allowed anymore altogether. And sincere apologies to user <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/u\/minijuanjohndoe\/\">u\/minijuanjohndoe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p id=\"QfFBZs\">Valve employees won\u2019t be able to use their authority to hand out manual bans anymore, which certainly seems like a win. They\u2019ll have to rely on the same systems as everyone else \u2014 reporting players after a game, and letting the automated system take care of things. <\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/2020\/11\/23\/21591480\/dota-2-player-banned-valve-dev-disagreement-apology\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dota 2 is a competitive game, and things can get infuriating for players locked into a match. Perhaps a teammate isn\u2019t listening, or you end up getting stomped by another player. Part of the game is rolling with the punches and dealing with those frustrations. One Valve employee failed to do so, and it ended up being a social media mess. Player minijuanjohndoe posted on the Dota 2 subreddit, via Dot Esports, complaining that he had been sent to the game\u2019s low-priority mode for an in-game disagreement, which serves as a temporary matchmaking ban. The poster and the Valve employee, Firewatch co-creator Sean Vanaman, were arguing about whether to rally around an objective or fall back and let it go. During the argument, minijuanjohndoe said&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerpt-more\"><a class=\"blog-excerpt button\" href=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/valve-developers-lose-ban-power-after-dota-2-disagreement\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polygon"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Valve developers lose ban power after Dota 2 disagreement | Arcader News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dota 2 is a competitive game, and things can get infuriating for players locked into a match. 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