A day after the Steam Summer Sale came to a close, over 40,000 Steam accounts were banned by Valve.

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Dot Esports reports that an exceedingly large number of bans became apparent on the Steam Database on July 6. The data reveals that nearly 30,000 of the bans were delivered before 12 pm with the final total of 40,411 bans easily beating the last record of 15,227 in one day.With the crackdown commencing the day after the Steam Summer Sale had ended, it appears Valve cracked down on cheaters buying cheap copies of games for a new account that could be used to cheat with.A VAC ban essentially stops a user from playing on any VAC-secured servers, and is usually triggered automatically when any third-party changes to a game give the player an advantage.In addition to the 40,411 accounts picked up by VAC, 4,972 were banned in-game for throwing games, griefing or cheating in ways that got around Valve's Anti-Cheat software.This sudden wave of bans comes after Steam's recent overhaul of the trading card system to combat farming.

Hope Corrigan is an Australian freelance news writer for IGN. You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter