"Dota 2" continues to be one of the most important games in the world of esports, but the Dota scene has a problem. — Valve Corporation
BERLIN: Dota 2 continues to be one of the most important games in the world of esports.
Not only does the world championship The International pay out record amounts to the winning teams every year, but the number of spectators is also back to those from before the pandemic, as most recently at the Arlington Major, according to Esports Insider.
But the Dota scene has a problem.
That's because this is already one of the most complex games in esports. Right from the start, players have 123 heroes at their disposal, each with several abilities, which can quickly become overwhelming.
In addition, most of the heroes can be used flexibly in different roles, which makes it difficult to learn general facts about the characters at all.
All this complexity is adding to another problem: The community is struggling to keep itself alive.
"If the game continues to be patched [...], I feel like the [community numbers] can be successful," Kevin "Purge" Godec told dpa. However, the number of people playing simultaneously has been stagnating for years, according to Steam Charts.
Updates, updates, updates
When Purge analyses new game updates on his YouTube channel, the videos are sometimes over nine hours long - as was the case about five months ago for patch 7.31.
An update can mean new mechanics are introduced and heroes radically rebuilt.
This renewal means more complexity, which can put off newcomers.
With a revised and expanded tutorial system, developer Valve is trying to counteract this.
"It's never too late to try to get some new people into the game. But it just depends on how far you are willing to go and I think a lot of people that currently play Dota would not be OK with things being catered to a casual audience," Shannon "SunsFan" Scotten told dpa.
The commentator has developed a tool with a partner that makes it easier to learn Dota while watching.
Tool for newcomers to Dota 2
With the extension for the streaming platform Twitch, viewers can interact with control surfaces in the stream as if they were in the game themselves. This way, all information about heroes, spells and items is directly available for reference.
In addition to a large number of streamers, ESL, Dreamhack and Valve have signed user agreements with SunsFan for their tournaments. Meanwhile major organiser in Arlington, PGL, has been accused of copying the tool itself.
"At [the last Dota World Cup] "The International" we had 16 million unique viewers," SunsFan said. "We get a lot of tweets and a lot of positive messages. Also, a lot of returning players."
Dota tournament stream discontinued for newcomers
Although there seems to be enough interest for such offerings, some initiatives are also being discontinued. The newcomer stream for the Dota World Championships, which Purge and SunsFan were involved in, was discontinued after attempts at the 2014 and 2015 World Championships.
"The problem is that it created a separate spectator experience from the primary stream," says Purge. However, he says, people were not equally supplied with content, which did not communicate the scope of the tournament equally. That's why they tried to include more content like this the following year, he says - "a really really big deal."
SunsFan isn't worried about the game's future, though: "Dota is late in its lifecycle, [...] but it's had a very long lifecycle, so who knows how much longer it has," he says.
"It's a very slow decline and the numbers are still quite respectable, so there's a lot that can still be done." – dpa
