After almost a week of peaceful protests, the #SaveTF2 movement has finally gotten Valve's attention. But will they fix the TF2 bot problem?
Valve has officially responded to the #SaveTF2 movement through a tweet on Thursday. “TF2 community, we hear you!” says the tweet. “We love this game and know you do, too. We see how large this issue has become and are working to improve things.
TF2 community, we hear you! We love this game and know you do, too. We see how large this issue has become and are working to improve things.
— Team Fortress 2 (@TeamFortress) May 26, 2022
This would be the first post on the Team Fortress 2 Twitter profile since October 2020. The decade-and-a-half game, understandably, hasn't been the company's primary focus for a long while now. Indeed, the last time Valve actually tackled the TF2 bot problem was two years ago – but that effort obviously wasn't enough.
However, not all fans are convinced of Valve's commitment, many of which have replied on the tweet to express their skepticism.
Thanks for acknowledging the outcry, but these issues have been reported for years and met with complete silence. How can we have faith that they're now being addressed? What should we expect to see you do after all this time?
— RTGame Daniel (@RTGameCrowd) May 27, 2022
Call me pessimistic but at this point I doubt anything is going to be done to actually fix TF2. The truth is that barely anyone at Valve wants to work on this 10+ years old game.
— PetitRageux (@PetitRageux) May 27, 2022
I'll believe it when I see it pic.twitter.com/f5bBvKdSuj
— spiceful salty (@RealSaltyAudio) May 27, 2022
The #SaveTF2 movement was special in that it discouraged its members from directly confronting or contacting Valve employees in an effort to reduce the toxicity that could come from their frustrations. Instead, the movement focused on sharing the word about the TF2 bot problem and posting on social media about how much they love the game and how desperate they are for the botting problem to be fixed. This seems to have worked, as Valve has finally responded with an official statement on the movement's subject matter.
The #SaveTF2 movement has finally succeeded in getting Valve's attention, but the next step would be actually getting the TF2 bot problem fixed. Now, we wait for Valve to deliver on its promise, and hopefully, we won't have to wait for long. And hopefully, the fix they make actually prevents the same issue from propping up ever again.