A petition has appeared on Change.org requesting the reinstatement of open qualifiers for the upcoming Shanghai Major in Counter-Strike 2.
The petition was created by a co-owner of the British esports club Viperio, which ranks in the top 150 global HLTV rankings. The author appealed to Valve, urging them not to turn CS2 into an exclusive game.
"Teams, players, and fans will no longer be able to witness teams performing miracles in the qualifiers. These storylines are what make Counter-Strike the greatest game on the planet. Removing them will forever change the history of this game.
Let's not allow Counter-Strike to become an exclusive game. Let's not let them take away our crazy storylines."
The initiative has been supported on social media by many well-known members of the Counter-Strike 2 community. At the time of this publication, the petition had already gathered around three thousand signatures.
To recap, on May 31, Perfect World announced details about the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024. According to the announcement, only closed qualifiers will be held in Europe and the Americas for the RMR tournaments, with teams being invited based on the official Valve rankings.