Petition to save Team Fortress 2 from bots hits over 100,000 signatures

Thousands have rallied behind a petition in an attempt to gain attention from Valve to fix their favorite game and it has reached over 100,000 signatures.

The Valve war-based hat simulator Team Fortress 2 has entertained fans with team-based action since 2007. Becoming the source of countless memes, Garry’s Mod, and Source Filmmaker shorts, after 15 years, the community has shown no sign of slowing down for this classic shooter.

While the gameplay is still fun and balance holds up, the swarm of sniper bots invading servers has rendered the game virtually unplayable. Players tired of the bots are coming together in a community-led event on social media titled “#FixTF2.”

At the time of writing, nearly 140,000 signatures have been signed for the “Save TF2” petition, which players can complete and submit through their Save TF2 site.

The campaign has led to a surge of players filling out the campaign, and this has caused a backlog of signatures to be verified. Nearly 53,000 signatures have so far been confirmed, with over 85,000 still awaiting confirmation.

A similar campaign took place in 2022, called “Save TF2,” where fans praised the game and mentioned why it is worth saving. Valve did respond to the community, but outside of the Summer 2023 update, more needs to be done to quell the swarm of bots.

On June 3, 2024, the community has planned a mass call-out event on X (formerly Twitter). Fans plan to post what the bots are doing to the game rather than praise it and why it should be saved, calling out the problems TF2 faces with evidence captured in-game.

Team Fortress 2 YouTubers Weezy and Shork, the person behind the live-action “meet the team” videos starring the voice actors of the TF2 characters, are frontlining this movement.

While the game suffers from head-shooting sniper bots spamming obscenities over the in-game chat, Valve has turned its attention to other ventures. TF2 remains extremely popular with a very active fanbase, including its own cast being big supporters of the game.

On the “Save.tf” website, the hosts call out the risk that the bots present, not just to TF2 but also to other titles using Valve Anti-Cheat, such as Counter-Strike 2, which can make them vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

“Cheating and abusive behavior affects more than TF2. Games such as Counter-Strike 2 suffer from flaws in VAC. Cheating and botting are large issues not only with Valve games but the industry as a whole. Something must be done.”

The petition has received so many visitors that the traffic made the website temporarily crash and the petition put a hold on sign-ups so it can officially verify signatures. Now fans can log in with Google to instantly sign it.