"F*** Valve": Bizarre protest against Valve marks start of StarLadder Budapest Major

Six people gathered at MTK Sportpark, the venue for StarLadder Budapest Major Stage 1, to protest against Valve, the developer of CS2, on the opening day of the Major.

They stood up in front of the stage with signs that read "Fuck Valve." This group was also wearing T-shirts with the Gandom logo, which is a crypto casino that sponsors the Brazilian team Imperial. Earlier this month, Imperial were rebuked after briefly adding Gamdom's logo to the game as a sticker. Imperial use Gamdom's logo and name per a sponsorship deal with the crypto casino.

CS2 News, a popular Counter-Strike page on X, claims that Gandom was behind this gathering at the StarLadder Budapest Major. Dust2.us and HLTV were unable to verify this information.

However, Gandom's owner and founder, Felix, replied to CS2 News that Gandom has nothing to do with it.

"This is an effort to sabotage us more by a competitor," Felix wrote on X.

"Paying a $2.5k bounty per person that is identified here holding up the signs, we are going to take legal action; this bs doesn’t belong to the Majors."

Something similar, albeit more serious, happened at the PGL Copenhagen Major 2024, when rioters backed by CSGOEmpire invaded the stage and had to be removed by security personnel.

StarLadder and Valve haven't commented about today's protest at the Budapest Major.