Gaming
Even a week of controversies can't stop Dota's meteoric rise: they just prove it's here to stay.
It’s been a busy month for Dota 2 tournament organisers across the world. On one side of the globe, European admins struggle to keep teams in their competitions, on the other prominent South-East Asian (SEA) side teams have been banned for fixing matches. All the while, Chinese teams are dropping out of Western tournaments at an alarming rate, simply because there are too many to play. The boom in Dota’s popularity over the past year is heartening for those of us invested in its future, but is this a sign of unstructured, uncontrolled growth? And is this really the image we want to put forward for the game? Red Bull spoke to Beyond The Summit founder and caster-in-chief David “GoDz” Parker about what these events mean for eSport as a whole and what can be done.
There are more than 265 tournaments for Dota 2 across the world, offering $23 million in prizes. Admittedly, that total is skewed by the enormous The International 4 pool, but there is still a fair amount to be made if you attend as many as possible. And the pressure to do so is tangible.
“Yeah, to some extent,” GoDz told Red Bull. “Teams need to prove themselves to get invited to TI, and for the teams who aren't the best in the world, they have to hedge their bets and play as many tournaments as possible to maximise their earnings.”
However, running that risk means paying another price, as Chinese teams Vici Gaming and Newbee discovered this month. Having played 100 professional matches in the 90 days post-International, VG in particular were feeling the burn. Not wanting to compromise their performance, both teams cancelled their spots to appear in Kiev at The Summit 2 finals.
GoDz said after the decision was made: “I spoke to iceiceice a few days ago, and it sounded like the primary issue for VG was their sheer fatigue more than anything else. They've been playing and traveling more than any other Tier 1 team lately, so it's understandable they wanted a break.”
Though they’re the only teams so far to pull out of a tournament as high profile as TS2, many others are feeling the strain. Natus Vincere were forced to play the final game of their BO3 against home team LGD in the WCA finals at 11:30pm while contending with jetlag. To make things worse, the final game stretched on for hours as servers failed and the match had to be remade. But other tournaments this month suffered from the same issues: DreamLeague accidentally organised too many games per day for Team Tinker, forcing them to either play to exhaustion or forfeit.
That said, GoDz is confident that the players most at risk also have a defence against exhaustion. “Most of these players are so passionate that it doesn't affect them as far as 'burn out' is concerned,” he told Red Bull. “Sometimes there's signs of fatigue, but most players aren't too badly affected.” He also believes that the wide array of tournaments at the minute is a good thing. “The tournaments and leagues that are best for the teams and look after the teams best are the ones that teams will play and value most,” GoDz told Red Bull. “It's good for the growth of Dota.”
Disorganisation and overabundance of tournaments could still form a feedback loop of degrading quality, none of which is fun for players or fans. And with Dota and eSports at a formative stage, it could prevent the scene from growing at its current, exponential rate. But benign and well-meaning organisers are the least of the game’s problems given recent revelations out of South East Asia.
Of the dramatic events to rock the Dotaverse in the past few weeks, clearly the accusations, and eventual admittance, of match fixing are of greatest concern. After a lengthy investigation of several small teams competing in SEA tournaments, Ren “PacificRen” Vitug came forward with the results. To his, and many others’, dismay, they implicated far larger fish in the Pacific pond.
Having looked into a tipoff on Pinoy teams rigging games to win bets placed against themselves, Ren found the MSI-sponsored Mineski team to be involved in “suspicious betting activities”. With the help of GosuGamers and Dota2Lounge (the premiere site for eSports betting, using rare items as currency) these suspicions were confirmed, but after pulling on that thread, other schemes started to unravel. Mainly, the involvement of The International 4 qualifier Arrow Gaming.
The announcement became rather more high profile than it should have been – despite the top tier international name involved – when the team was banned from The Summit 2 during a qualifying match. The ban, 20 minutes into their match against Invasion makes for awkward watching as the casters try to deal with the situation. As messy as it was to eventually win only to be notified they were out of the tournament, the days that followed threw more unwanted light on the murky problems facing the SEA Dota scene.
“The whole incident was a giant mess,” GoDz told Red Bull. “I somewhat empathise because I'm familiar with the conditions these players have, but ultimately the match fixing that the team was involved in is inexcusable and had to be severely punished.”
Initially believed to be only two of the five players involved, placing bets on Dota2Lounge via their girlfriends’ accounts, further digging implicated the whole team into the fray and indicted their manager. Arrow players DDZ and Lance eventually confessed to their wrongdoings, but not before attempting to cover up their activities, as former Titan and now Team Malaysia manager Tiffani “Oling” Lim discovered.
In a Facebook post, DDZ apologised to fans for their actions, blaming financial concerns for the idea. “We considered doing it in the first place because we were desperate for money,” he wrote. “We live in the city, and being underpaid, things are just very tough and harsh on us sometimes. We are very very sorry for this action and we should have never done it.”
Even on a small scale, these problems are a concern. Tournaments, teams and players depending on the interest of sponsors. If a team or even a game has a bad reputation, they won’t want to be associated, as GoDz points out. “Hopefully not much will change,” he told Red Bull. “But realistically it may turn away some potential sponsors or investors, and it's definitely tarnished the reputation and integrity of the scene for the global Dota 2 community.”
The scandal could dissuade sponsors from taking a chance on any tournament or team in the region, which would be awful for everyone involved, especially given the talent coming out of teams like Team Malaysia. But the fact remains, if even Arrow members were tempted, who else in the region is fixing matches?
All of this is very concerning, but the outcomes of each – disorganisation, team exhaustion and match fixing alike – have been positive. Examples have been set, mistakes have been learned from and ultimately, like all growing pains, these are mere bumps in a much longer road. Any sport faces these challenges, but few deal with them as swiftly and self-sufficiently as Dota has in the past few weeks. That’s something to be proud of.
