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esports
The 5 reasons for each year of Dota 2’s success
Community is king for Dota 2, and Valve knows it.
In a sea of modern games, Dota 2 is still THE standout game on Steam. While many players might joke about how Dota 2 is addictive and that it “consumes our lives”, that hardly explains why Dota is so successful.
It’s possible to say that the extraordinary number of personalities in Dota 2 is what allows it to succeed, but that is hardly enough. What made Dota 2 get off the ground? What constantly pushes it to greater and greater heights? Since 2011, Dota 2’s player base has been growing year by year, which can only mean that is consistently becoming more attractive as a game through the years. We picked out 5 important events for each year which pushed Dota 2 forward.
1. (2011) Organizing The International with a 1 million-dollar prize pool
The first ever International set the tone right for Dota 2 eSports to move forward from. Using the age-won prestige of an invite-heavy tournament as a springboard, Valve hit the eSports scene hard with a prize pool that was totally unheard of from a developer-sponsored tournament.
The winning team, Navi, became an overnight success and Dota 2’s eSports darling. Valve’s 1 million dollars bought the team attention and their superstar status by eclipsing all other existing eSports in terms of prize money. The recognition gained from Ti propelled Dota 2 into the eSports arena amongst titles such as Starcraft, Quake, and Counter Strike.
Navi, the first ever The International Winner
© Valve
As a result, after the event ended, fans knew that Valve had their backs, and that their game mattered. What made the event great wasn’t how well planned or produced it was, but rather the fact that it was a pioneer, and now, a classic.
2. (2012) Working together with Perfect World to bring Dota 2 to China
It might be common sense to go into China as it boasts the largest local market in the world, but that wasn’t really the case back in 2012. Valve took a risk due to the poor IP protection laws in China at the time, which meant that copycats would immediately pop up.
Dota 2 Asia Championships,
© Perfect World
To this, any IP concerns were justified as several Chinese mobile games and Dota-esque spin offs emerged and became wildly popular. I would say that this helped Dota 2 somewhat because it made Dota 2’s characters somewhat more mainstream, and even in Singapore many of my friends got to talking to me about Dota thanks to its spin-off, Dot Arena.
Shanghai Major aside, Perfect World has made some creative decisions with the Dota 2 IP. From organizing the China Qualifier live event to creating controversial server-exclusive items, the initiative which Perfect World took with Dota 2 was what enabled China Dota 2 to attract the myriad of sponsors and teams that now crowd the top-tier of Dota 2 competition.
3. (2013) Introducing Crowdfunded Prizepools
In 2011, nothing yelled “customer involvement” louder than crowdfunding (with USD 77 million increase in dollars pledged over Kickstarter from the previous year). Video games that could only exist in dreams, AAA or indie, were being given the money to be realized. Kickstarter might have started the trend, but asking people to crowdfund tournaments were unheard of.
The International 3’s crowdfunding
© Valve
The compendium allowed the Dota 2 fan base to really feel like a part of the community and it was Valve’s litmus test. This paved the way for The International 2014 and subsequent The Internationals to have insanely huge prize pools!
4. (2014) The Free to Play Documentary
What is eSports? Free to Play told us about the struggles and the realities behind such a misunderstood career. Free to Play, to me, is something gamers can show to people who are too impatient to be introduced to the games we play.
The documentary concept behind Free to Play was what made it both relatable yet authoritative. Following each player was like cheering on the protagonists in a movie, and it was great seeing each player’s story.
Having a basic idea of what competitors go through as eSports professionals also helped remove the stigmas associated with competitive gaming. 2014 was another foundational year moving forward for Dota 2 as Valve started introducing seasonal events in earnest, such as New Bloom.
5. (2015) The Dota 2 Majors
Similar to baseball or football leagues, the Major Series was a mirror of League of Legend’s own plethora of circuits and leagues all over the world. Implemented with open qualifiers in mind, this series was quite literally a golden ticket for any competitive gamer in a qualifier region to try their hand against international competition.
Sadly, the Majors were a bit too much. On paper it was an excellent idea: 1 Major to cap each season. Sadly, due to time constraints and event duration, each Major also represented a 4-week block in which external event organizers could not expect the best teams to be available.
The growth of Dota 2’s playerbase on Steam
© Steamcharts
Interestingly, Dota 2’s peak player base seems to plateau every year in February. February 2015 saw a peak in Dota 2 players thanks to the New Bloom 2015 event, while February 2016 saw the same spike thanks to the Winter Battle Pass with the new Shanghai Major. Dota 2’s all-time peak stands at March 2016, and a reminder of how successful promotions bring back older players and attract newer players.
Innovation is Valve’s strongest point, but also a weakness in the expectations it sets up. The following Battle Passes associated with each Major later in the year were met with some dissatisfaction from the community as there were few differences going from Winter to Spring. When you heard “Battle Pass” for the International this year, you might have skipped it because you were sick of hearing the term.
6. Bonus: (2016) 7.00
With the most recent update, a new era of Dota 2 has begun. If Source 2 was any indication, this upheaval can only bring a better Dota 2 to both players and spectators in time to come. Be warned though – as with Source 2, we’re now beta 3.0 with a myriad of bugs and optimization issues with the game.
A new map and so much more was introduced in 7.00
© Valve
If you’re criticizing Valve for pushing out an unpolished build, you need to know that it’s practically a better way of producing optimizations and user-oriented fixes to the game. It’s a public version of consumer trials (where they ask members of the public to test a new game in a closed environment), and the sheer number of players involved speeds up the process by creating a metric ton of data to analyse and in turn direct development.
Given their speed at producing fixes and optimizations for the past 6 months, it’s reasonable to expect that public beta is now a standard practice for Valve and their way of reiterating to the community something they have been saying since Ti1: We’re all in this together.
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