Gaming
Esports
The incredible rise of Dota
From Warcraft 3 mod to the largest esport on the planet, explore the remarkable history of Dota.
The amazing documentary Against All Odds, charting OG’s incredible victory at TI8, is coming first to Red Bull TV. Find out more here.
The International 9 Dota 2 tournament in Shanghai will feature a life changing prize pool of more than $30 million. Five of the best players in the world will become multi-millionaires overnight and most likely the most financially successful esports athletes of all time.
That prize fund is testament not only to the skill of the game’s top players, but the number of spectators the MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) game now pulls in, as well as the number of casual players below them in the pyramid. Millions of people play the game every month making it one of the most successful games ever and a serious money spinner for its creators at Valve. But while the Seattle-based developer is responsible for the massive explosion in the popularity of Dota, it’s important to remember that this game was initially built by the community, and has a history that predates Valve’s game by almost a decade. That’s right: this esport was forged by fans, not big publishers.
In the beginning there was Blizzard
If you really want to trace Dota’s roots right back to the very beginning, you need to start with the Aeon of Strife fan mod for StarCraft: Brood War. A fan hack built on top of Blizzard’s 1998 real time strategy game, it became so popular online that it was eventually ported to Blizzard’s newer Warcraft 3. Compared to the modern version of a MOBA, it’s a very different experience, but this is where the basics of the genre were born. The custom map for StarCraft took away control of your army, instead giving you control of one powerful unit while the AI sent minions down three lanes on a map to destroy the opponent's base. This was a co-op game, played against an AI team rather than other people, and there were only four players per team, with little complexity in combat outside of standard attacks, but the three lane system of creeps heading towards a foe's base became the basis for the most successful genre of games in recent years.
But Aeon of Strife is more of a distant cousin to Dota. Its real lineage began in the early 2000s, with another mod for Warcraft 3 called Defense of the Ancients or DotA, (that capitalisation of the A is important to distinguish between the mod DotA, and the Valve sequel Dota 2.) Created by modder Kyle “Eul” Sommer, the mod is very similar to Dota 2 as we know it today, just in a different engine that obviously lacks a lot of the modern bells and whistles. Five players compete against five others on a map with three lanes, trying to destroy the opposition base, with creeps running down each lane and each unique playable hero having different abilities and progression. The basics of Dota were born here.
Despite the popularity of the mod, and obviously not realising that he had developed what would become one of the most financially successful genres ever, Eul stepped away from developing DotA shortly after he launched it. He did try to create a sequel, but it never really took off, and his involvement in DotA eventually fizzled out (later, he eventually signed away all of his ownership of DotA to Valve).
As many tried – and mostly failed – to create other versions of DotA it became clear that it would be DotA: Allstars, developed mostly by another modder, Steve “Guinsoo” Feak that would be the main version of DotA going forward. Allstars is for the most part what people mean when they refer to the original DotA. It was the version that was played for years on the pro circuit and ultimately what set the base for Dota 2.
After a couple of years, Guinsoo, along with Steve "Pendragon" Mescon who basically built the DotA community hubs, would go on to Riot Games and build League of Legends (another hugely popular MOBA with many similarities to Dota), leaving control of DotA: Allstars with IceFrog, the mysterious developer who would go on to become the single most influential person in the history of Dota. IceFrog didn’t come in and change everything, but he did become the main person responsible for balance and new content, shaping the way Dota was played.
DotA continued to be a massively successful game with no support from any major developers or publishers. The entirely fan made game became one of the biggest esports in the world, with major tournaments and thousands of dollars up for grabs. But with the launch of League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth, it became clear that the MOBA genre was going to become a big deal and DotA needed some kind of backing to stay relevant. That is where Valve came in.
Valve turns on the tap
In 2009 IceFrog revealed he had joined Valve and was working on a project with them, which everyone under the sun instantly realised would be some kind of MOBA. But it wasn’t until 2010 that we first got official word of Dota 2. Valve revealed the game and that it would be released in beta form in 2011, but gave some press access to the game earlier – and early signs were positive. Outside of a controversial trademark filing for the term ‘Dota’, which sparked years of legal battles, Dota 2’s development went reasonably quiet for a good few months.
Then the giant gaming expo Gamescom 2011 rolled around and Valve decided that the best way to show off Dota 2 to the public was to host a $1.6 million tournament, the largest prize pool ever at an esports tournament at that time. The small booth in the middle of Gamescom showed off the game not just to those in attendance, who also got invitations to the beta, but the wider world who were all watching the live stream of the competition. It turned out to be a genius move, with thousands of people learning what Dota was and instantly wanting to play the game.
As the months rolled on, Valve started to invite more and more people to the beta and a pro scene started to form. It was small at first with mostly online tournaments and prize pools that rarely topped the $25,000 mark. But it was the start of what would become the biggest pro scene in all of gaming.
The early Internationals featured some of the greatest matches ever
© Valve
Before long a year had passed since the Gamescom reveal and The International 2 was announced with another $1.6 million prize pool, but this time it was held in Seattle. With a larger player base and the public being able to get into the beta if they really wanted to, this was when the Dota scene really started to take off. The game was also in a much improved state, and while it still didn’t feature all of the content from DotA, it had a much larger hero pool and was considerably easier to use, making the action even better.
The year between TI2 and TI3 saw massive growth for Dota 2. The game was finally officially released on Steam for everyone to play in mid 2013, resulting in a massive wave of new players. Valve also brought in crowd funding for the TI prize pool, which bolsted the cash on offer by over $1 million. TI3 was a breakout tournament for Dota, and the epic grand final between Natus Vincere and Alliance remains the most iconic Dota match in history and was responsible for bringing in thousands of new players.
Dota continued to grow at a pretty rapid pace over the next few years, and the tournament scene also continued to evolve. TI remained a massive deal every year, with the crowd funding drives continuing to bolster the prize pool every year, adding to TI’s long reign as the largest prize pool in esports history. By TI6 the prize pool had broken the $20 million mark, and for this year’s TI9 there will be more than $30 million on offer.
Valve and IceFrog continued to develop the game, with Dota 2 finally getting the complete roster of heroes from DotA in 2016 and new heroes being added from there on out. In 2015 Dota 2 was updated to run on Valve’s Source 2 engine in the ‘Reborn’ update that completely changed the UI, and is one of the biggest updates Dota 2 has ever seen. Since then the UI and general systems around the game have remained very similar.
Then in 2016 the 7.00 update was released and it singled perhaps the biggest shift to the core gameplay of Dota in a decade. The map was overhauled, new features added and almost everything in the game was rebalanced in some way. It started the trend for a major game changing patch to be released in the late stages of each year, but none have quite had the game shifting impact that 7.00 had on Dota.
These days Dota remains incredibly popular, and the pro scene is still one of the top esports in the world. Millions are given away in prize money every year, and The International continues to be the biggest esports event of the year. It has been well over 15 years since DotA first started off, but the crazy thing is that if you look back at the first versions of the original DotA mod you can still tell that at its core, it’s the same game that people are playing today. With no signs of Dota massively slowing down anytime soon it wouldn’t be surprising to see the game dominate for the next 10 years as well.
