Lost Ark players are banned if their accounts are not in the game for several months.
Lost Ark players re-login to the game account after a few months but have been permanently banned. The game system notices that the gamer cannot play the game. Developer Smilegate and publisher Amazon Games have implemented a policy of banning accounts from using bots, in an effort to rebalance the game’s finances and prevent players from re-login to unbalance the game.
A series of negative reviews then preceded this policy of publisher Amazon. These bans are recorded on Steam user profiles and are a “black spot” for people playing online games.
“Banned for no reason, last played in March 2022,” one user wrote. “Thanks for permanently marking my Steam profile…”. Another said: “Don’t waste your time. After more than 700 hours, I was banned for stopping playing the game after a few months, now I can’t play the game anymore. I advise you to consider coming back.”
Lost Ark is a popular Korean MMO game, released in the Western region by Amazon Games in February 2022. However, one of the game’s big problems, which started shortly after launch, was the bots. The number of players is gradually decreasing, causing gamers to reduce their ability to interact.
Amazon Games has banned more than 1 million accounts from using bots since launch and is also balancing in the game to address this issue. But even with drastic actions, bots keep popping up. The number of unsatisfied players with the game increased. The exact issue is that the ban affects Valve’s anti-cheat system, VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat), an automated system by Valve, the owner of Steam, that helps detect cheats installed on User PC.
Amazon Games responded on the official forum that after the recent wave of bot bans, they have seen the impact of these bans on gamers. “We have identified the bug that triggered these bogus bans and are actively working to restore all affected legitimate players. In the meantime, you can still submit a ban appeal form to customer support so the team can quickly help restore your account and remove the penalty. Those who are successfully unbanned will also have their mark removed from their Steam profile.