Does this count as cheating the system?

VAC bans are for games, not for Steam itself.

VAC is for games.

Are you stupid?

Lawl like he would get banned for this.

wont get a vac ban for running SAM lol

If you open the game's window in SAM, Steam thinks you're in game.

Yep, but it also works for making Steam think you're idling in a game without actually having to be running that game.

This program was popular on Christmas 2011 when for archivement you recive a coal witch gives you games.

Damn, I guess that was a waste of time ._.

Nope. I run 2-3 games from time to time, and they all drop cards. Castle Crashers and Organ Trail just dropped a card for me at almost the exact same time.

I was idling Organ Trail and Terraria today while at work and got my cards just fine. The first game you start is the one that will show you as playing in your profile, but both will drop cards.

Also I didn't really think the drop rate was any slower than when I ran just one game at a time. I didn't time it or anything, but to me it feels faster to idle one and play another, likely because I'm not itching to go and play a game I want to play now rather than one that just got trading cards.

One time I opened Bit.Trip Beat, Bit.Trip Core, Bit.Trip Void, and Bit.Trip Runner all at once and played them simultaneously

SAM makes steam think you're running the game.

I just keep like 7 games open and play one.

Yeah I saw that too, but I figure this way I can just leave it that way and at least this takes away my need to always be worrying about whether or not I'm running any games.

It does.

This is true, i had 3 games running at once (trine 2, CS:GO, tf2) got my first 3 cards in each game, then only 1 of the games got cards relatively fast/normal pace (trine 2), i believe idling makes it even worst as one of the games didn't drop my last card without playing at least 3 freaking hours of that game (CS:GO).

I can vouch for this through personal experience.

I don't think Steam will close my account based on a screenshot of something that may or may not actually be in violation of any rules that someone who may or may not actually be me posted on a non-official forum.

I had just finished idling all my games, and then like 20 more of my games got cards. :P (not that I'm complaining about getting free money)

That's because there might be a drop limit per week, i had the same issue in early beta, got a ton of drops then i went 3 days non stop without any drops. I think it's similiar to TF2 drop system, it resets at X day and time for everyone.

dont think so

Yup! SAM can pretend to be playing any game that you own (or any F2P game), whether it's downloaded or not.

One thing worth noting: if the game doesn't have any achievements or statistics, it won't automatically show up on the list, so you'll have to type in the game ID in SAM's search box and hit "Add Game". I had to use that for FTL and Kerbal Space Program.

Valve games running on the source engine can't run simultaneously I believe. Or just Valve games in general.

Only one instance of the Source engine can run at a time, if I'm not mistaken. So not only Valve games, but also 3rd party ones using Source, such as The Ship.

You don't get items by just running the game

Playing games? I heard the lgends but it is said that the old knowledge of the ancient was lost long ago; even if we wanted to we wouldn´t know how to...

that makes no sense. This only makes steam get even more money,as they receive a cut for every card sale-

Lol nuh uh!! I have used profits from steam cards to buy 3 new games since the summer sale started.

It helps by removing the need to download the games.