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Save TF2 / Fix TF2
Part of a series on Team Fortress 2. [View Related Entries]
Related Explainer: Who Started The 'Save TF2' Protest And Did It Succeed?
Overview
Save TF2 is a Team Fortress 2 community movement aimed at attracting Valve's attention to the long-running bot problem within the video game. Started by Team Fortress 2 YouTuber SquimJim in early May 2022, the campaign has pursued the goals of Valve recognizing and addressing the bot issue and ultimately fixing it. In June 2024, another protest was organized by the game's community and took place under #FixTF2 hashtag due to Valve failing to resolve the problem.
Background
2019 – 2022 TF2 Bot Crisis
In late 2019, the multiplayer video game Team Fortress 2 experienced a massive infestation of bots, mostly playing as Sniper class with perfect aim. The bots would join official Valve servers, copy other player's names so it would create confusion and make it harder for them to be kicked, spam slurs and ruin the gaming experience for players in other ways.
On January 10th and February 7th, 2020, YouTuber[1][2] Toofty posted two videos about the infestation, both of which gained over 1 million views (shown below, left and right).
The bot problem persisted in 2021 and 2022, with multiple content creators highlighting the issue in their videos (example[3] shown below, left). On March 11th, 2022, Toofty posted another video[4] about the bot problem, criticizing Valve over its purported unwillingness to fix the problem despite the game maintaining a sizable fanbase (shown below, right).
Why does Valve not do anything about this? If there is one thing that we know for certain from all this chaos is that Valve doesn't care. Sure, there are a couple of absolutely legendary devs continuing to work on the game, but in general, the 12 billion dollar company, which probably has it within its capacity to put a stop to this, clearly doesn't care.
2022 "Save TF2" Campaign
On May 7th, 2022, Team Fortress 2 YouTuber[5] SquimJim posted a video in which he expressed his frustration with Valve letting the issue persist and proposed to organize and send multiple emails to Valve employees and to gaming news websites in hopes of drawing Valve's attention and getting a response. The video gained over 190,000 views in three weeks (shown below).
Is [one] email going to make a difference? Absolutely not. But what happens if they start receiving hundreds or even thousands of similar emails? […] And at this point, what do we have to lose. They already do nothing, they can't do any less, so we might as well try.
Following the release of the video, SquimJim posted a mailing list containing work emails of multiple Valve employees and gaming news websites to his Discord server SquimJim's After Breakfast Club.[6]
On March 13th, 2022, IGN,[7] prompted by multiple email suggestions, published an article about the Team Fortress 2 bot problem. On the same day, IGN shared a tweet[8] linking the article that gained over 6,000 retweets and 31,400 likes in 10 days (shown below).
On March 13th, Redditor[9] Kubsons07 posted a screenshot of the tweet to /r/tf2, where it gained over 18,900 upvotes in 10 days.
On May 15th, 2022, Robin Atkin Downes, the actor who voices Medic in the game, posted two tweets in which he pledged community his support in attracting Valve's attention to the problem. The tweets[10][11] (shown below, left and center) gained over 2,200 retweets and 19,300 likes and 6,000 retweets and 39,300 likes in 10 days. On March 22nd, 2022, Downes posted a thread in which he reported reaching out to several employees at Valve, urged them to continue the peaceful protest and promised to continue to lend his support (shown below, right).[12]
On May 24th, 2022, a group of Team Fortress 2 content creators announced #SaveTF2 peaceful protest scheduled to take place on May 26th. The organizers urged the Team Fortress 2 community to post about how much the game means to them on social media with the #savetf2 hashtag (announcement poster shown below). The announcement posts gained over 9,600 retweets and 34,000 likes on Twitter[13] and over 19,400 upvotes on Reddit[14] in several hours.
May 26th, 2022 "Save TF2" Protest
On March 26th, 2022, the scheduled peaceful social media protest took place, with both current and past Team Fortress 2 players and content creators sharing posts, artworks, videos and other content with #saveTF2 hashtag. On that day, #saveTF2 became trending on Twitter, peaking at #2 rank worldwide with over 159,800 tweets with the hashtag shared as of 1:20 PM EST.[15] "Valve" and "Please Valve" also trended on Twitter worldwide.
Multiple posts with the hashtag went viral on Twitter. For example, a SFM image shared by Twitter[16] user @sansation122 gained over 2,400 retweets and 11,400 likes (shown below, top left). An artwork tweeted[17] by user @constantinnenn gained over 1,900 retweets and 7,500 likes (shown below, top center). A Breaking Bad meme posted by Twitter[18] user @zemithvx gained over 3,300 retweets and 19,100 likes (shown below, top right).
Valve's Response
On May 26th, after over 250,000 tweets with the #saveTF2 hashtag were posted, the official Team Fortress 2 account tweeted[19] that they hear the community and had been working on improving things (tweet shown below). The tweet gained over 10,000 retweets and 31,600 likes in forty minutes.
Following in the month following the campaign, Valve implemented a number of updates which incrementally but temporarily improved the bot crisis in the game.
2024 "Fix TF2" Campaign
On May 18th, 2024, Team Fortress 2 content creator WeezyTF2 uploaded a video titled "How We Can ACTUALLY Save TF2" to YouTube[20] in which he rallied for another campaign similar to "Save TF2" to once again bring Valve's attention to the bot problem in the game.
Following the video, on May 26th, 2024, a group of prominent Team Fortress 2 community members announced "Fix TF2", a petition campaign aiming to again to bring Valve's attention to the bot issue and for the company to implement continuous support to prevent the problem resurfacing (announcement posts[21][22] shown below).
The campaign invited users to share artworks, video game clips, and make other posts about the bot issue in Team Fortress 2 with the hashtags #FixTF2 and #SaveTF2 on June 3rd, 2024 (examples shown below). On June 3rd, 2024, Team Fortress 2 and the hashtags trended on X / Twitter as users made posts[23][24][25] about the game.
On safe.tf,[26] an online petition was launched, which garnered nearly 200,000 votes as of June 4th, 2024.
On Steam, the game's "Recent reviews" rating changed from "Mostly positive" to "Mostly negative" as users posted[27][28] negative reviews, or changed their existing reviews, en masse.
Search Interest
External References
[1] YouTube – The TF2 Aimbot Crisis
[2] YouTube – The Truth Behind the TF2 Bot Crisis
[3] YouTube – Why TF2 Bots Can't be Fixed
[4] YouTube – How Many Bots in TF2 in 2022?
[5] YouTube – Maybe It’s Time We Get Valve To Do Something About TF2
[6] Discord – Squim Jim's After Breakfast Club
[7] IGN – Team Fortress 2 Players Are Protesting the Game’s Massive Bot Problem
[9] Reddit – they noticed us
[10] Twitter – @Robin_A_Downes
[11] Twitter – @Robin_A_Downes
[12] Twitter – @Robin_A_Downes
[13] Twitter – @TF2OutofContext
[14] Reddit – Let's all get together and SAVE TF2!
[15] Get Day Trends – #savetf2
[16] Twitter – @sansation122
[17] Twitter – @constantinnenn
[19] Twitter – @TeamFortress
[20] YouTube – How We Can ACTUALLY Save TF2
[21] X – @heavyfortres
[23] X – @_RIINCHU_
[24] X – @TeamFortressS2
[25] X – @Waterwind0w
![Trick 12 minutes ago We need to talk #KillTF2 I've noticed for a while now that there are some serious issues within this community. I'm not referring to the bots, however. There is a severe case of wishful thinking and delusions of grandeur plaguing this game. To cite an example, for the longest time, people within this community firmly believed that TF2 had solid player numbers. Upwards of 70K people playing this game. By now everybody should know the truth. But this revelation is nothing new. People have known for years, yet it only finds acceptance when one YouTuber comes along and disproves an utterly delusional stance on the matter. We had websites like Teamworktf displaying the real player numbers all these year, yet people would frequently put those into question. If you genuinely believe that 200K players flocked to this game during the summer update, then I can't help you. This brings us to today. Now we have our second big attempt to defibrillate this dead game by having everyone act like toddlers. "Whee whee, fix my game". That's all I hear from this movement. Let's be serious here for a second. Valve doesn't care. Why should they? Give me one good reason why Valve should dedicate valuable resources to fixing this nearly two-decade-old game. The revenue it generates is less than pocket money to them. And as far as reputation goes, Valve's cash-cow is Steam. They don't need any of their game titles to be a big name in the industry anymore. A petition, seriously? That's the best you can come up with? Everybody familiar enough with the internet knows that petitions don't to jack. You hand that to Valve, and Gaben runs it through his office shredder within 5 seconds of seeing it. There is nothing to be gained from fixing this game. At best, they will give you another Tweet, making false promises again. Where is the Heavy update? Remember that? Just please accept that this game has been taken off life support. Not even the community can keep it on life support for long, it's literally over. But let's assume Valve did fix the bot crisis for a second. All the bots, poof, gone. Now what? You're back to playing this outdated mess of a game that is decades behind in coding. Games that are released nowadays already come with much more stable codes and engines than what you're offered in TF2. So please, stop living a delusion and accept reality. The game is dead and there is no knight in shining armor coming to save you. Let's give this game a final goodbye. #KillTF2 [Closed Captions] [FWKZT) 16 minutes ago valve is a good company, your wrong you are expecting to much from them, they cannot fix tf2. they cannot save you from your nightmares. they are not god. there is no fix at the time of writing for the bot crisis, any fix is irrelevant or will get broken through. face the truth! Rebigela 16 hours ago Apparently "Lack of a pride event" is being blamed for the review bombing https://imgur.com/Yr420DT For those of you that don't want to click on the link: Person 1: I know, right? But it doesn't explain why it's getting so much hate. Person 2: The reason TF2 is getting so much hate is because there's no pride event for june. They are stuck with a dwindling playerbase, and can't pull in a modern audience because they don't feel welcome. Just about every major game and every major game company has a pride event, or pride themed things; Halo, Call of Duty, Warframe, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, The Sims 4, Activision, EA games, Ubisoft, etc. It's a show of respect to your playerbase, and reminding them that they're thought of. There's not as many bot players as there are p----- off people about there being no pride content. Did you notice how it peaked around June? That's no coincidence. Person 1: Considering that Pyro was confirmed gay, you think they'd jump on the opportunity. Swiftzei Jun 4 @ 1:08pm YOU VVILL HAVE BOTS PLAGUE YOUR GAME YOU VVILL HAVE VALVE NOT CARE YOU VVILL EAT ZE BUGS YOU VVILL HAVE VALVE GIVE YOU MEDIOCRE UPDATES YOU VVILL CONSUME ZE PRODUCT AND YOU VVILL BE HAPPY ? Adominai 24 minutes ago No hate to #FixTF2, but... I feel like #FixTF2 won't do anything to solve the bot crisis or improve the game. Like last time with #SaveTF2, Valve did respond by saying they would fix it, but they never did, so it basically failed. Valve has kind of abandoned this game, letting it slowly rot away. Negative review bombing won't help either; you're basically just telling anyone who wants to play the game that they shouldn't because of the bots. Anyways, this is just my opinion. Please don't get your pitchforks and torches and start chasing me in 2FORT UNBREAKABLE 8 minutes ago Originally posted by King of Games: it has led to some fun times on this otherwise boring forum. For that i salute them Personally I like calling the FixTF2 link a virus and making people write me an essay about how amazing the YouTubers are. Some funny moments from that. Last edited by UNBREAKABLE; 8 minutes ago Arc Jun 59:08am No **** It was just people putting a hashtag in their name while... playing TF2. With people already playing TF2. Or making youtube videos for... people who already play TF2. #3 It was the bare minimum effort put into a "movement" by dudes sat on their ass at home making absolutely no meaningful change to anything while patting themselves on the back. Hammer Of Evil 1 hour ago Best time for TF2 is now. all the angry dudes are downvoting and uninstalling in their little fake news protest. allchat has never been so calm, and racism free! join us (: Last edited by Hammer Of Evil: 1 hour ago](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/list/002/833/147/17d.png "I'm not even gonna name these anymore")
![ShitfuckTF2 Consider joining my patreon >> 75 Ü rocketgreentea Online The Absolute State of the TF2 Community Award Add a comment Tsumugi 15 minutes ago TF2ubers are a bigger plague on the game than bots. TEAM FORTRESS 2 Pingas1189 ▼ 11 hours ago VALVE FIX THE GAME - #FIX TF2 900k views 20:01 9:37 1000 CRATES UNBOXING - FINALLY ANOTHER UNUSUAL???? 1.2M views GETTING AUSTRAL 5000TH M honestly... i don't really understand #fixtf2 movement Why would valve update the game that doesn't give them as much money as counter strike, dota 2 and... counter strike (valve is still a company after all) The same thing can be said about left 4 dead 2, but atleast that game gets(community) updates (against DDOS attacks) Originally posted by MARATHON: Players take pride in being apart of the collective tf2 community until they actually have to participate in it. Originally posted by LikeableEmmec: We as a community should not have to rely on community [...] servers OMG THEY KILLED TONY 2 minutes ago fixtf2 or savetf2 ISNT going to work. it didnt work the last time, and it's not gonna work again. no amount of review bombing or brigading is gonna fix that. you're not a revolutionary. View 1 comments & details Tags: Team Fortress 2 melvin sneedly #killtf2▾ TF2 has problems but bots are not one of them There, I said it. The "bot crisis" can be completely avoided if you just play on community servers. *B-but I- I dont want to play on community servers >> I cant be the 7th sniper and n-no random crits and so many tryhards (people who are better than me)☺☺ Then instead of complaining about the lack of "good" community servers and spamming hashtags begging Valve to make casual playable, the community can maybe try hosting "good" community servers. Someone did that and it actually ended up working and creating a good active place for lots of people who genuinely wants to play the game. Unlike Counter Strike 2, you have absolutely no reason to choose casual over community servers. So stop comparing the cheater situation in CS2 to TF2. There is a reason why old games like CS 1.6 and CSS and community servers in tf2 have never suffered from cheaters, its because you can just ban the cheaters from a server and the problem is completely solved Bots arent ruining the game at all, they are completely avoidable. Stop acting like Casual is the only way to play TF2. TF2 has worse problems in its core that you cant fix with custom server plugins and mods and #savetf2 doesnt really focus on them. less than 20k actual players Imfao tf2 is dead. fixtf2 wont do anything. start your own community server if you're so fed up with casual (and dont like the current community server lineup). actually, keep whining and doing nothing, it's funny to watch a bunch of redditors get really angry. Angom 2 hours ago I don't get all those "FixTF2" and "Bot" people are talking about Just turned on my Xbox 360 and jumped into a Team Fortress 2 match, and it was an absolute blast! I din't saw any of those bots, glitches, etc. It was just pure, unadulterated fun. What are you guys complaining about? Last edited by Angom; 2 hours ago https://steamcommunity.com/app/440/discussions/0/4339860975800977197/ https://steamcommunity.com/app/440/discussions/0/4339860800346723836/](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/list/002/831/528/10c.png "Continuation of my last image")
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