A letter about chicks resonates with the community—has VAC therefore received a major buff?

A popular Reddit post takes the form of a letter from a 6,000-hour player to Valve. It has already picked up 12K upvotes and 2.6K reposts, touching on Valve’s pet system update and anti-cheat. They say suffering is fertile ground for literature, but before I met him, I was apparently just complaining blindly. Every line is packed with love for the game—let’s take a look.

Dear Valve:

Earlier this month, I got an egg as a weekly drop, and I was thrilled. Honestly, it was the first thing in this game to make me happy in a while. It hatched right there on the main menu, and I named it Greg.

Greg

Then it despawns, and I have to choose between feeding Greg and grabbing the case. I realized that, for the first time in years, Valve had given me some kind of power in this game. I can’t stop cheaters; reporting does nothing. The “anti-cheat improvements” in the patch notes haven’t changed anything in my actual matches—I still run into the same players tracking me through smoke every other game. But Greg? Greg’s fate is in my hands.

So I’m not going to feed him.

Greg will die, and I’ve accepted that. Any day now, the game will start telling me he’s running out of food, and when it does, I’ll think of that guy on Ancient last week who went 38–4 and already had his crosshair on my head before I could peek. Greg is paying the price for that guy. Greg is paying the price for every guy like that.

I know this isn't fair to Greg. None of it is fair. And that's the point.

If you want him to live, fix the game. Not another set of patch notes—actually fix it. Until then, Greg will starve, and you can explain to the community why you had time to make a chicken photo booth but not a working anti-cheat.

Sincerely,

Someone with 6,405 hours played who has already given up all hope

Update: Greg isn’t real. I know. Neither is your anti-cheat.

A little chicken struck a chord with players, who showed their support in the comments:

Other players also started discussing the chicken:

Maybe it would be better to keep it once it grows up?

Other players have even created groups to save the little chicken.

The post went up about a week ago. Interestingly, over the past two days, players in China and abroad have been saying that VAC has been noticeably effective lately—it really looks like VAC is stepping up. Does Valve actually want Greg to survive?

“That’s the second VAC Live I’ve seen in four matches today. Every game is still packed with cheaters, but fewer of them are getting away with it. I’m not saying the game is fixed, but it’s a small first step in the right direction—as long as they can keep it up.”

“I didn’t run into a single cheater in any of my Premier matches today in the 20k–25k rating range. None of the friends I talked to today ran into one either. In one match, they had a closet cheater on the other team who got VAC banned live on stream. It’s been a long time since things felt this good.”

Cheat communities have also said that VAC seems to be cracking down hard lately, and players with official matchmaking priority are easy to detect.

If Valve manages to win back this discouraged player, Greg will probably survive. My chick hatched on National Day. I haven't had time to play during the holiday, so I haven't fed it. As of today, it's been ten days, and it still has one layer of feed left. Based on the timing, Greg only has a few days of feed remaining. If players choose to feed it, it will survive. Tomorrow, I need to feed it, and I want to name my chick 粮啄.