Why Valve Abandoned TF2 - Epiphany

[[Closed Captions]]

Introduction

Tf2 is in a sorry state, it has been for years and now I see once again players crying to valve to pay attention to them. My question is why?

Why would valve ever care about this failure. Make no mistake valve produces quality and this product, while insightful is ultimately an after thought... Let me go over the reasons why valve has no reason to continue even LOOKING at this piece of trash.

- Reason 1: Not enough people care about or play the game -

It's been known for awhile (years) that TF2 isn't actually filled with hundreds of thousands of players. Most "players" are bots, actually I'd go so far to say that it's been like this ever since trading was added. TF2 was never really a popular game, it was popular online but that's it. Why would valve waste resources on a game that does not have sufficient players? A game that probably generates a drop in the bucket to their total revenue? It's clear that there is no demand.

Savetf2 along with fixtf2 is filled with people who think they want this game fixed but in reality probably haven't played in years due to reasons unrelated to the bot crisis. The main valve games (dota/cs2) rake in hundreds of thousands of players yet the only thing tf2 rakes in are hundreds of thousands of bots. Bots that they knew for years that weren't players. Ohhh but hundreds of thousands sign a petition! Who cares, csgo2 would get millions. Now do you realize how much smaller you are compared to your brothers tf2?

Valve Reasoning: TF2 has been dead since ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 2013 lmao. Why work on a game with such a small playerbase?

- Reason 2: This game is very difficult to work with -

Ever since the source code leak we've learned how much of a dire state tf2's coding is. Remember this game is very old. The code is garbage and hard to work with. Many coders have looked into TF2 and have confirmed how bad it is. In comments in the game code we see valve developers constantly complain, even getting simple things to change or work is a mission.

I look back on the constant slew of bugs on really any type of update, you wonder why they can bearly add a seal into the game without everything breaking or ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ itself? Well it's due to how terrible the code is, it's so bad that even minor changes cause the game to fall over like a house of cards. Would YOU wanna work on this game and accomplish nothing with your career? Or do you wanna work on the good fun ♥♥♥♥?

Valve Reasoning: Everytime we work on this game it feels like we're ripping our teeth off. Making even the tiniest of changes makes the game fall apart. Why should we work on such an unfun and painful project

- Reason 3: Bots will always win -

We've seen many people talk about this to death but minus well recite. There is no known solution to the bot crisis, this is an industry wide issue with multiplayer PVP games. Anti cheats are futile and bots are endless. Banning hundreds of thousands of bots results in no change. Sure there are measures to make it less worse especially in TF2 but to expect the issue be solved is ridiculous. You minus well pray to God for the bots to go away. Just hire people to do the treadmill work! Sure but it's a waste of resources frankly, they are like William Afton they always come back, why pay attention to tf2 when there other games need the attention?

The people who suggest legal reproductions to bot hosters is ridiculous. People get dox and slandered all the time online, even swatting yet the perpetrator rarely gets punished. Legal systems aren't to keen on wasting time on "small" cyber crimes.

Valve Reasoning: Sorry I rather not waste my career by banning bots and going to court trials to incriminate people in their basements.

- Conclusion -

It's clear why valve hasn't bothered with this game, the competitive shift was their last ditch effort to get the playerbase up. They saw competitive as the only justification to keep continuing development. Yet we know how the story ended, they implemented it poorly and the community hated it. This in their minds was the end... They caused irreversible damage to the reputation of competitive to TF2 players and so they left. They kept it going of course, a bit of extra income is fine. Why in hell would they keep working on this? When it's so hard to code things in, when the game breaks constantly from the slightest of changes, when there is just so much more exciting things to work on, when there isn't even much of demand, why fix it when it's hopeless at the moment TO fix it?

Tell me if you were a dev at valve. Would you work on TF2?.. I thought not.

[[Closed Captions]]

Bruh why do they censor curse words?? IM NOT FIVE STEAM

[Francine Smith]

The problem is that they haven't abandoned the game. If TF2 got 0 updates there would be no expectation for it to be in a working state. The fact that they keep it on life support is the issue. Either do the work to keep the game playable or call it quits and stop releasing micro transactions. Clearly they want the game to keep existing, but just not enough to do meaningful work. If they truly killed TF2 tomorrow it would be sad, but it would be better than this.

[[Closed Captions]]

Originally posted by Francine Smith:

The problem is that they haven't abandoned the game. If TF2 got 0 updates there would be no expectation for it to be in a working state. The fact that they keep it on life support is the issue. Either do the work to keep the game playable or call it quits and stop releasing micro transactions. Clearly they want the game to keep existing, but just not enough to do meaningful work. If they truly killed TF2 tomorrow it would be sad, but it would be better than this.

Well that's what I said, they keep it around for a bit of income. Also even so, no matter what they do the bots will always come back so what art theyith to do?

[Bad Medic Buddy]

They abandoned tf2 because they tried to make it a comp 6v6 esport and the community (rightfully) rejected this so they gave up and put it in maintenance mode.

The game still prints them money, it might not be like steam or their bigger games but even niche gamemodes like MvM make the company millions of dollars a year. That alone should be enough to justify 1 or 2 full time devs.

The codebase being old and ♥♥♥♥ sounds bad but that's the case with most things in tech. Good developers can work with a bad codebase and make it better over time.

The whole treadmill work argument is stupid. All companies have treadmill work. What do you think HR and accounting do? With bots at least you can automate a lot of it and build technologies that will help reduce the massive amount of fraud and cheating done on your *primary cash cows*.


The reason valve doesn't work on tf2 is simple: tf2 makes them good money without any effort, and putting effort into the game wouldn't significantly improve the amount of money they made from it.

Tf2 was designed with very intentional mechanics and gameplay. When valve tried to shoehorn in the popular thing into tf2, it backfired and actually made the game less popular. Because tf2 was made the way it was, gameplay updates have to be high quality and fit with the rest of the game to be successful. This is simply too much effort for too little reward when compared to pushing out trendy cashgrabs or discounting other people's games on steam and taking a cut of the profits.

[Radioactive Grass]

Originally posted by Bad Medic Buddy:

They abandoned tf2 because they tried to make it a comp 6v6 esport and the community (rightfully) rejected this so they gave up and put it in maintenance mode.

The game still prints them money, it might not be like steam or their bigger games but even niche gamemodes like MvM make the company millions of dollars a year. That alone should be enough to justify 1 or 2 full time devs.

The codebase being old and ♥♥♥♥ sounds bad but that's the case with most things in tech. Good developers can work with a bad codebase and make it better over time.

The whole treadmill work argument is stupid. All companies have treadmill work. What do you think HR and accounting do? With bots at least you can automate a lot of it and build technologies that will help reduce the massive amount of fraud and cheating done on your *primary cash cows*.


The reason valve doesn't work on tf2 is simple: tf2 makes them good money without any effort, and putting effort into the game wouldn't significantly improve the amount of money they made from it.

Tf2 was designed with very intentional mechanics and gameplay. When valve tried to shoehorn in the popular thing into tf2, it backfired and actually made the game less popular. Because tf2 was made the way it was, gameplay updates have to be high quality and fit with the rest of the game to be successful. This is simply too much effort for too little reward when compared to pushing out trendy cashgrabs or discounting other people's games on steam and taking a cut of the profits.

^ This

Not only is TF2 a money printer for Valve that requires no maintenance but Valve essentially tried to turn TF2 into CS:GO and failed.

The push for competitive, the different grade weapon skins it's all there, and when the community rightfully pushed back they realized that TF2 wasn't worth the effort and that it with a game as old as TF2 it would be easier to try and build a new competitive shooter from the ground up.

Which brings us to deadlock...

[( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)󠀰 󠀰]

Originally posted by Bad Medic Buddy:

They abandoned tf2 because they tried to make it a comp 6v6 esport and the community (rightfully) rejected this so they gave up and put it in maintenance mode.

misinformation

[[Closed Captions]]

Originally posted by Bad Medic Buddy:

They abandoned tf2 because they tried to make it a comp 6v6 esport and the community (rightfully) rejected this so they gave up and put it in maintenance mode.

The game still prints them money, it might not be like steam or their bigger games but even niche gamemodes like MvM make the company millions of dollars a year. That alone should be enough to justify 1 or 2 full time devs.

The codebase being old and ♥♥♥♥ sounds bad but that's the case with most things in tech. Good developers can work with a bad codebase and make it better over time.

The whole treadmill work argument is stupid. All companies have treadmill work. What do you think HR and accounting do? With bots at least you can automate a lot of it and build technologies that will help reduce the massive amount of fraud and cheating done on your *primary cash cows*.


The reason valve doesn't work on tf2 is simple: tf2 makes them good money without any effort, and putting effort into the game wouldn't significantly improve the amount of money they made from it.

Tf2 was designed with very intentional mechanics and gameplay. When valve tried to shoehorn in the popular thing into tf2, it backfired and actually made the game less popular. Because tf2 was made the way it was, gameplay updates have to be high quality and fit with the rest of the game to be successful. This is simply too much effort for too little reward when compared to pushing out trendy cashgrabs or discounting other people's games on steam and taking a cut of the profits.

which all is today this is a failed product. again no reason to return to it, you can argue about ifs and buts, but ultimately the outcome is the same. They have literally no incentive to keep it moving.

comp was the only way to get this game out of its endless rut, and because of their incompetence they fumbled and henceforth gave up on it. failed project, failed product. they keep it around solely because it looks like it has high players and interest in it (it doesnt) and because its a bit of side cash.

Again no right minded person would work on this

[[Closed Captions]]

Originally posted by Radioactive Grass:

Originally posted by Bad Medic Buddy:

They abandoned tf2 because they tried to make it a comp 6v6 esport and the community (rightfully) rejected this so they gave up and put it in maintenance mode.

The game still prints them money, it might not be like steam or their bigger games but even niche gamemodes like MvM make the company millions of dollars a year. That alone should be enough to justify 1 or 2 full time devs.

The codebase being old and ♥♥♥♥ sounds bad but that's the case with most things in tech. Good developers can work with a bad codebase and make it better over time.

The whole treadmill work argument is stupid. All companies have treadmill work. What do you think HR and accounting do? With bots at least you can automate a lot of it and build technologies that will help reduce the massive amount of fraud and cheating done on your *primary cash cows*.


The reason valve doesn't work on tf2 is simple: tf2 makes them good money without any effort, and putting effort into the game wouldn't significantly improve the amount of money they made from it.

Tf2 was designed with very intentional mechanics and gameplay. When valve tried to shoehorn in the popular thing into tf2, it backfired and actually made the game less popular. Because tf2 was made the way it was, gameplay updates have to be high quality and fit with the rest of the game to be successful. This is simply too much effort for too little reward when compared to pushing out trendy cashgrabs or discounting other people's games on steam and taking a cut of the profits.

^ This

Not only is TF2 a money printer for Valve that requires no maintenance but Valve essentially tried to turn TF2 into CS:GO and failed.

The push for competitive, the different grade weapon skins it's all there, and when the community rightfully pushed back they realized that TF2 wasn't worth the effort and that it with a game as old as TF2 it would be easier to try and build a new competitive shooter from the ground up.

Which brings us to deadlock...

oh right... I FORGOT that new game, lol its so joever for tf2 haha.

well you can add reason number 4 on there - why work on tf2 when we have a cooler class base shooter in the works?

[Buster Cherry]

So you're saying you don't support #SaveTF and are a bot sympathizer and are and enemy of the community and a #KillTF2 doomer?

[[Closed Captions]]

Originally posted by Diet Coke® Enjoyer:

So you're saying you don't support #SaveTF and are a bot sympathizer and are and enemy of the community and a #KillTF2 doomer?

YOUR STARTING TO SOUND LIKE A SEPARATIST

[Bad Medic Buddy]

Originally posted by Closed Captions FWKZT:

Originally posted by Bad Medic Buddy:

They abandoned tf2 because they tried to make it a comp 6v6 esport and the community (rightfully) rejected this so they gave up and put it in maintenance mode.

The game still prints them money, it might not be like steam or their bigger games but even niche gamemodes like MvM make the company millions of dollars a year. That alone should be enough to justify 1 or 2 full time devs.

The codebase being old and ♥♥♥♥ sounds bad but that's the case with most things in tech. Good developers can work with a bad codebase and make it better over time.

The whole treadmill work argument is stupid. All companies have treadmill work. What do you think HR and accounting do? With bots at least you can automate a lot of it and build technologies that will help reduce the massive amount of fraud and cheating done on your *primary cash cows*.


The reason valve doesn't work on tf2 is simple: tf2 makes them good money without any effort, and putting effort into the game wouldn't significantly improve the amount of money they made from it.

Tf2 was designed with very intentional mechanics and gameplay. When valve tried to shoehorn in the popular thing into tf2, it backfired and actually made the game less popular. Because tf2 was made the way it was, gameplay updates have to be high quality and fit with the rest of the game to be successful. This is simply too much effort for too little reward when compared to pushing out trendy cashgrabs or discounting other people's games on steam and taking a cut of the profits.

which all is today this is a failed product. again no reason to return to it, you can argue about ifs and buts, but ultimately the outcome is the same. They have literally no incentive to keep it moving.

comp was the only way to get this game out of its endless rut, and because of their incompetence they fumbled and henceforth gave up on it. failed project, failed product. they keep it around solely because it looks like it has high players and interest in it (it doesnt) and because its a bit of side cash.

Again no right minded person would work on this

It's not a failed product, it prints money. The reason they don't work on it is it doesn't print more money relative to the time they invest. People aren't going to buy 10x more keys if the bots are removed, so valve doesn't want to invest 10x the manpower they currently put ibto the game.

And anyone would work on tf2 for a reasonable salary. Thats not the issue.

[I lost a bet]

Originally posted by Closed Captions FWKZT:

Bruh why do they censor curse words?? IM NOT FIVE STEAM

You actually can disable the word filter from appearing.
Go to store preferences then to community content preferences and put ".*" in "Never filter these words".

[Francine Smith]

Originally posted by Closed Captions FWKZT:

Originally posted by Francine Smith:

The problem is that they haven't abandoned the game. If TF2 got 0 updates there would be no expectation for it to be in a working state. The fact that they keep it on life support is the issue. Either do the work to keep the game playable or call it quits and stop releasing micro transactions. Clearly they want the game to keep existing, but just not enough to do meaningful work. If they truly killed TF2 tomorrow it would be sad, but it would be better than this.

Well that's what I said, they keep it around for a bit of income. Also even so, no matter what they do the bots will always come back so what art theyith to do?

Its not about the money, TF2 makes so little compared to every other revenue stream they have. TF2 was one of the games that put Valve on the map, and they continue to use the mercs as company mascots. The reason it still exists isn't for profit its for posterity and image. TF2 could make nothing, but they still wouldn't kill it because of what that would mean for them as a company. TF2 is like a memento they keep on a shelf, something they can use to show off and self aggrandize. If they do fix TF2 it wont be because of profit it will be to save face and keep their brand integrity. In the past Valve has thrown unspeakable amounts of money in the trash over much less, but they covet their image.

They can either make a more effective anti cheat or hire contractors to properly moderate all their online multiplayer tiles. Most developers outsource their anticheat/moderation anyway

[Marteun]

Because valve has other projects to do

[Chinfu1189]

The game is over a decade old thats why they dont wanna work on it lmao