Well, today was finally the day. The long-awaited End of the Line update was finally released, to hundreds of thousands of players starving for new content. Promises of new weapons, a new map, lots of great new cosmetics, and a kick-ass short had held people captive for 16 long months, and after all that waiting, it arrived.

What exactly did we get?

• New cosmetics (although some are a bit bugged)
• New unusual effects
• A new melee weapon (although it is a reskin)
• A new taunt
• Ducks
• Probably the best SFM short that will ever be made

That's a pretty meaty update, isn't it? Especially for a community-made update. Miles better than Robotic Boogaloo, for sure.

But there seems to be a near-universal sense of disappointment with this update. And that makes no sense to me.

Pause for a moment and consider Team Fortress 2, as a whole.

A seven year old, free-to-play hat simulator (and occasional multiplayer shooter). And it's still receiving updates.

There have been nearly 475 updates since release,^source of which about 30 have been major updates. Valve a) has no duty or obligation to continue to update this game and b) has no duty or obligation to make free updates. It's a video game; it's a product; it is the result of uncountable hours of development time and Valve has every right to make money off of it. We're lucky that Valve is as great a company as it is and continues to give us new content and breathe more life into the game.

Take just about any other multiplayer game out there. How many are still receiving updates seven, five, or even three years after their release? How many of them go free-to-play and then continue to receive new content? Not many.^{citation needed}

And while it sucks that the map wasn't made official and there weren't any new weapons, and that some of the cosmetics are lame and other cosmetics weren't added at all, TF2's situation is still so much better than it could be; namely, Valve not updating the game at all.

So before you submit a new post about Valve being an evil cash-grabbing corporation ("$4.99 is an outrageous price to pay for the hundreds/thousands of hours I've put into this game") or EOTL being the worst update ever ("seriously, only ~20 new items and a really good video?"), keep in mind three things.

1. Valve does not owe you anything
2. McVee does not owe you anything
3. You are not entitled to anything

And yet here we are, with a substantial update thanks entirely to McVee and co's hardwork and dedication to this game. Pretty lucky, huh?