Valve announced that Dota 2’s 2022 battle pass will be released on Sept. 1. Dota 2 fans naturally expected to wake up to a battle pass release but were left empty-handed, hence the uprising within the community. Robson “TeaGuvnor” Merritt, a Dota 2 caster, decided to support the many waiting for Valve by going live on Twitch and repeating the word “battle pass” until it officially gets released.
TeaGuvnor’s stream started at 10am CT and he has been live for over two hours at time of writing. During this period, the caster has said “battle pass” more than 7,200 times.
Even gamers who aren’t familiar with Dota 2 may know about the relationship between Valve and time management. Valve Time is a term that generally gets used when Valve promises a date to release content but fails to hit it with close to zero communication. Though Valve has gotten better over the years, especially with Dota 2, fans of the game frequently get exposed to Valve Time every year with content releases.
The cycle generally starts in the unknown, with Valve deciding not to communicate with fans regarding a major content release. This forces players to do the math based on past patch dates to come up with potential dates for a release. When these dates are no longer valid, Valve generally releases a blog, informing the fans of the upcoming content and its release date.
When Valve’s announced release date rolls over in the Republic of Kiribati, Tonga, and Samoa, the three countries that start a new day earlier than the rest of the world, Dota 2 fans start flooding Reddit and Twitter with related memes to pass the time until the battle pass officially gets released. In most cases, Valve pushes the battle pass in the final hours of its scheduled release date or postpones it by a day or two.
