The thesis that Dota 2 is dying has been discussed for many years. First, Valve was criticized for bugs, then – for rare updates, then – for the lack of a clear tournament system, lack of tutorials, lack of advertising … And since then nothing has changed! In a pandemic, competitive Dota actually paused (online leagues do not count), and now all these problems have come to the fore, but Valve continues to remain silent, and the community is gradually going crazy.
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The workflow at Valve is built in an unusual way: employees are not tied to specific teams and therefore can freely move in the company structure (or, in some cases, receive appointments to the hottest projects). In 2012, programmer Michael Ebrush in a note tried to refute rumors that chaos is happening at Valve, but he succeeded in this:
“Don’t think that people come every day and do whatever they want randomly. The company will definitely not approve if a programmer decides to go to a spare room and weave straw hats there (however, if he wants to write a utility that allows people to weave and sell virtual straw hats, then that’s okay). “
Sounds very creative! But let’s fantasize: what will happen to the miracle utility after the only fan of straw hats in Valve suddenly grows cold towards them and decides to start creating DLC for Half-Life? The community believes that it will be forgotten – this is exactly what happened with Dota Plus.
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Online Dota 2 since launch in 2012
At the time of launch, a paid subscription to Dota seemed like a brilliant idea: extended statistics, hero pumping, exclusive skins, challenges, guides … Everything that players had to go to third-party sites for was available right in the client. Only since then the service has been updated once – and only added a few cosmetic items. In addition, Valve was already more than six months late with the reset of the rating, although it set itself this deadline. At the same time, money from subscriptions continues to drip.
The problem here is not in Dota Plus itself – you can still pay for it at least for the sake of being able to raise level 25 on Meepo or Techies in order to instill terror in all opponents from the start of the game. But this is far from the first function that Valve simply forgot about – apparently due to the fact that someone in the office wanted to change the field of activity.
Similarly, Valve dropped the base statue mechanic; weather effects, for which there is a separate slot in the settings, but which can only be obtained on third-party sites; interfaces; kinetic gems; toolkit for creating custom bots; coaching system; section with training; campaign missions … And that is why today Dota is not only an excellent game, but also a graveyard of raw, non-working mechanics, which spoils the overall impression of newcomers who nevertheless took the risk to get to know it.
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Last hit training appeared in Dota 2 a few years ago – but since then the section has not been updated
Ironically, the Dota 2 website in China, created by Perfect World, has everything that the original lacks: official forums, guides, contests to attract new players, and even esports news. Valve tried to do something similar – the company even released a special DPC application, but only after a couple of months its support ended.
It is not known for certain how many people are working on Dota 2 today, but it is absolutely clear that there are several times less of them than in most competitive studios. While Epic Games, Blizzard or Riot are building franchise leagues with a one-year schedule, support for amateur leagues and professional coverage, Valve has been preparing a blog post for more than half a year with the general idea: “There are no tournaments, but you hold on.”
This is rather strange, because at the end of 2019 it became known that the developers intend to launch regional seasonal leagues – the system would become a logical evolution of the DPC model introduced a couple of years earlier. However, when the pandemic began (that is, in fact, in ideal conditions for the launch of such events – the regional leagues meant that clubs would play without spectators) Valve simply withdrew and let the situation go by itself. Fortunately, Epic Esports Events, WePlay! and other tournament operators.
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English language studio OMEGA League. Photo: WePlay! Press Service
Another related problem is the lack of support for tier-2 and tier-3 scenes from the developers. Considering the fact that Dota 2 continues to compete with other disciplines (and is easy to bypass – what is already there) in the total prize pool, the lack of an esports department at Valve is frankly depressing.
Even a million dollars donated from The International’s treasury to the prize pools of amateur leagues in Europe and the US could actually save many aspiring teams. After all, not everyone is destined to be Miracles and start their careers by winning a Major. The very presence of clear mechanics of growth and development in League of Legends esports is one of the reasons for the popularity of the game in all regions. In Europe, Dota 2 is still alive, but in America Fear recently declared the death of discipline at the amateur level.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but in the last message Valve wrote ‘upcoming season’, not referring to a full DPC season, but the online hell we see today. Apparently, if you want to get into esports in North America, you have nothing to do in Dota 2. “
Recently, the death of Dota 2 has become increasingly common, and this is not surprising: the game is at a standstill, and patches now only change the characteristics of the heroes. The last really big Dota 2 update came out a year ago – with it added forest items. What will be next?
All the anger of the community is likely to fade in the eyes of Valve, since the prize fund of the non-existent The International 2023 has already exceeded $ 36.6 million – it turns out that the community is quite satisfied with the development path of Dota and the Battle Pass as the only innovation in six months. But only Team Fortress 2 once died in the same pursuit of skins, and now it’s not hard to see parallels between these two games: the shooter also once beat records in popularity, but then his team just decided to leave for other projects.
Dota 2 has a trump card that differentiates the game from Team Fortress 2 – the esports scene, which prevents developers from viewing MOBA solely as a platform for selling skins. However, the snowball of discipline problems has been growing for many years, and Valve’s actions, on the contrary, have recently become more cosmetic in nature. Perhaps frightening predictions about the future of Dota 2 still have a foundation.
