Team Fortress 2 players have created a petition that has already gotten more than 150,000 signatures from those who are demanding Valve to issue a fix to the game's "Bot Crisis."
The crisis in question is something that many fans of the game have been experiencing for five years now. Team Fortress 2 was Valve's 2007 class-based shooter that still has a loyal fanbase today.
Team Fortress 2 Petition
(Photo : Valve / Screenshot taken from Steam)
The crisis comes with bots equipped with aimbot cheats which have flooded the game's Casual matchmaking servers for years now. These bots instantly kill other players using Sniper headshots as well as votekicking them from games and spamming the in-game text and voice chat.
The people who are responsible for hosting these bots have even programmed them to leak personal information in some situations.
Furthermore, one Team Fortress 2 content creator said that the culprits also went so far as to "swat" them by making fake emergency calls to the police so that officers could investigate their homes, according to WindowsCentral.
And with Valve's continued silence on the issue, players have responded by organizing themselves with the #FixTF2 movement. They have created a petition to force the developer to issue a fix to the problem.
Team Fortress 2 stands as one of the most popular multiplayer games as well as one of the best PC games in history.
The bot crisis started in late 2019 and so far, Valve has only commented on the issue once in 2022. The developer promised that it was "working to improve things" following the game's community getting a #SaveTF2 hashtag trending.
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After that, the problem improved for quite a bit but then regressed to become just as controversial as it once was, if not more. The state of the game at the time remains up to today and culprits are even impersonating other players.
The latest petition is asking for Valve to implement consistently supported anti-cheat measures for Team Fortress 2 as well as an "open line of communication" with the developer as to how the bots are being addressed, said PCGamer.
A Bot Crisis
For every signature that the petition receives, the player who contributed will send a copy of the petition to Valve. The site also noted that it was sending an email to the Team Fortress 2 developer every second.
The petition's website also details a June 3, 2024, community operation for its public awareness campaign that asks Team Fortress 2 players to share on every social media platform screenshots and video proof of the bot crisis with the #FixTF2 hashtag.
In doing this, they are hoping to underscore the scale of the game's ongoing bot problem to "transform this perceived petty drama into the massive, game-defining scandal that it is."
The site also noted that on top of the petition, there is a plan to gain attention from as many mainstream gaming news outlets as possible.
The creators of the latest petition are hoping that it gets enough attention to further shine a spotlight on the issue that Team Fortress 2 players are currently experiencing, according to PCGamesN.
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