Reddit's expectation that Valve would get involved is what blew this out of proportion. Despite the fact that Valve is notorious for not getting involved until they feel they absolutely need to.

Arguably they saw this as not their problem to fix and wanted TNC to make their own amends in a way the public was willing to accept. Kuku was never actually banned and so there was no reason for them to need to step in. This was never an issue of tournament organizers or governments trying to influence DPC. This was a PR disaster that just couldn't take care of itself.

TNC continually kept feeding on the rumor that Kuku would not be allowed to play. Despite the fact that they were more worried about his safety and not being happy enough that they were told they could use a stand-in with no penalty.

Valve got sick of TNC not handling the issue properly, having fans and talent revolt so they finally laid the smack down and made their opinions very clear.

The crazy thing is that in spite of this people are still very trusting that TNC has provided the full story about what they did and did not know. I personally get the feeling that they knew way more than they let on and just kept stoking the flames hoping to get more of the public on their side.

A good portion of this subreddit is honestly no better than the rabid Chinese fans they are vilifying. They refuse to try to look at this problem from any angle other than their very narrow perception. I'm not a big fan of Valve most days but objectively I have a hard time pinning most of this on them. It wasn't their mess, they wanted nothing to do with it and I can totally see why.