Valve has finally laid down judgement on the use of automated, hardware-assisted input software in its games, chiefly CS2. The company officially forbade the use of such software, including Razer’s Snap Tap, and other keyboard technologies.
Valve announced this in a specialized update release for Counter-Strike 2 today, Aug. 19, claiming it needed to “draw a clear line” regarding any scripting or “automating player commands.” While some forms of automation had previously “gained acceptance” and were allowed by Valve, the famed publisher believes recent developments for this particular keyboard software have now “blurred the line between manual input and automation.” This lead the company to lay down the ban hammer on any such assistance. The CS2 devs also warned any user caught using such tools will be promptly kicked from their match.
Valve didn’t just forbid the use of tailor-made software and tools that helped players automate some parts of their gameplay in the same update either. All kinds of automation are being phased out, no matter if they were previously accepted or not.
This includes the immensely popular jumpthrow and null binds regularly used in CS2; a decision Valve justified by saying it wants to “avoid accidental infractions.” Lastly, the company concludes its release by warning players to disable any form of tool or software that falls within these boundaries before starting up a CS2 match.
We previously wrote on the controversial position of Razer’s Snap Tap and Wooting’s Rappy Snappy input software, where I labeled them “external assistance” in our report. Valve seems to agree with this assessment, no matter how incremental the impact might seem. For those who missed it, both Razer and Wooting among others sought to develop tools to help players execute certain commands more consistently.
