- DOTA2 is a competitive multiplayer game produced by Valve Corportation.
- DOTA2 has a large, passionate fan base.
- DOTA2 fans lovingly refer to Valve as "Volvo" in the style of bad-internet-grammar-humor.
- Last year, Valve established an exclusive Halloween event for DOTA2 called Diretide, where users could access Halloween-themed game modes, rewards, and in-game goodies.
Now here's what happened this year's Halloween in the DOTA2 world: Nothing. Fans became furious on the night of October 31st, when DOTA2 offered no Halloween content patch or any word on the status of the in-game holiday from Valve. A massive 400+ page, 4,000+ comment thread on the DOTA2 development feedback forums was created, with fans expressing their displeasure over Valve's lack of communication with the community. The news even made it to Forbes and a petition on Change.org was created.
The running text gag this year:
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Give DIRETIDE
After Valve did not answer their pleas for help, DOTA2 fans turned to the (obvious) next best thing, the actual Volvo Car company. Volvo's Facebook page was immediately invaded with ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Give DIRETIDE posts.
However, in an unexpected move, Volvo's official Twitter responded in a positive way to the invasion of their company Facebook page:
By recognizing Valve's DOTA2 fans and their outcries, Volvo might have just gotten themselves free advertising. What started out as completely misguided complaints could very well turn into DOTA2 players buying Volvo cars! To find out more about this year's DOTA2 Halloween drama, check out the Diretide/Halloween 2013 Event Withdrawal Thread over on the DOTA2 subreddit.
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