Although the shooter Team Fortress 2 is still very popular on Steam even 17 years after its release, it is somewhat neglected by Valve. Fans now want to show how much they care about their game.
Fans of the aging hero shooter Team Fortress 2 (short: TF2) want to show Valve how many people still care about the game. To do this, they have now delivered a professionally bound book with the names of more than 340,000 players directly to the company behind Steam.
Players want to show Valve how many people love their game
What is behind this? Behind the action is a campaign aimed at saving the popular Steam shooter: #SaveTF2. Although Team Fortress 2 still has a passionate community more than 15 years after its release, it has become nearly unplayable in recent years due to masses of bots.
In 2022, players therefore started an initiative to save their beloved shooter – successfully. Valve responded to the community’s desperate call and promised to address the problem. The fans thanked it with a new player record for Team Fortress 2.
In June 2024, the game repeated itself: fans approached Valve with a petition, who responded with a ban wave against bots, effectively doubling their player count.
The YouTuber TheWhat, who organized the petition in June, has now provided an update. The names of more than 340,000 players who signed the petition were immortalized in a book, bound, and delivered directly to Valve.
On X, formerly Twitter, TheWhat writes: “This is a symbol of the astonishing number of people who love TF2 and want to see it thrive.” You can check out the post – including some cool shots of the book – here:
The community responds with the cynicism one might expect from players playing a 17-year-old game and feeling abandoned by the creators. “Wow, your names will be in Valve’s trash,” writes a user on X.
However, other players express their joy and pride at having been part of such a project. Another comment on X reads: “Thank you on behalf of the entire TF2 community for doing this. We know it wasn’t easy and probably also costly. But in the end, we are all very proud that you have allowed us to make our voices heard.”
There has not been an official response from Valve yet. However, it is assumed that they are currently quite busy with the MOBA shooter Deadlock. For which they were even willing to break their own rules: Valve breaks its own rule on Steam for their new multiplayer game Deadlock
