The popularity of Dota 2 - how and why?
Despite the rapid pace of the growing popularity of Dota 2, many people still can not understand what kind of game they are seeing. Is this a real-time strategy? Or is it such a new form of MMO with a top view? Is it something completely new or, on the contrary, terribly old? Perhaps the game has a little bit of each genre, so this recipe is one of the ingredients of the popularity of Dota 2.
In essence, Dota 2 is a real-time strategy based on a multiplayer game, the axis of which revolves around the concept of tug of war on three lines. In short, one team must choose 5 heroes, which, in theory, must defeat 5 heroes from the enemy team. Automatic minions (mobs) help you, as well as enemies, giving gold to the enemy who has defeated him, as well, helping to push the lines that are the only way to win the game. Each hero has 4 abilities (not including Invoker), and they must overcome their enemies with the help of magic and physical attacks, as well as additional items. Destroying creeps, heroes and enemy towers gives you an advantage over the enemy, both in gold and in experience, your hero eventually becomes stronger and stronger, you gradually have more and more chances to defeat the enemy. It seems pretty simple, is not it?
Although the honors for Dota 2 are already behind us and everyone knows how beautiful the game turned out, Valve considers its game as competitive in e-sports, which should grow and develop. Despite the fact that the company holds only one tournament a year, The International, their constant progress in creating an ideal and constant revenue stream to the tournament organizers and teams is different from any other. Cosmetic items such as tickets to the tournament in DotaTV, couriers and sets for heroes created by the organization itself, pennants, are sold for real money for fans through a virtual store. These virtual items generate income for organizations and teams, thanks to which, they have money to which they can organize new tournaments, thereby developing the game. It is very simple and ingenious at the same time, for example, interactive compendiums were able to raise the prize pool of The International 3 from a mark of 1 million dollars to a whopping 2.8 million.
New players in Dota 2 every hour is becoming more and more. For them, Valve offers a variety of help in mastering and understanding the mechanics of the game through a structured learning system and a limited set of characters (20 easy to understand heroes were chosen from more than 100). Directly in the game there are guides and guides that you can include right during the match, they will tell you what is best to buy and what ability to learn better. In addition, Valve, in the future, are going to create in Dota 2 a game system with a coach, as is done in Team Fortress 2. This system of training before real matches allows beginners to thoroughly study the main aspects of the game and start playing, and not quit the game at the first defeat with thoughts that the game is bad and complicated.
Reasons for popularity
If you combine all aspects of the game in Dota 2, then it comes out monstrously complex, and, perhaps, this attracts people into the game. Without hardcore and financial support, the game would not have gained popularity. In the early 2000s, DotA was already popular, but not as much as we now see it. It was a huge future project, then almost unnoticed. True, Valve admitted that they talked about DotA years before the development of Dota 2, and then they already noticed something interesting and attractive in this game, but there was no opportunity then. And today we see an excellent game, which they still decided to create, and did it perfectly.
Perhaps the passion from the fact that you learned to play in such a complex game and defeat the opponents brings incredible pleasure to the players, and so Dota 2 has become the most popular game on Steam, and not only. Without people who are absolutely committed to the game, it has never been able to reach such heights. In the end, this is not a casual game. Valve realized this, and did everything the way they did with Counter-strike, and probably will do so with all the other games.
Although Dota 2 began its journey much later than other competitors of the genre, such as LoL, the approach and strategy from the business perspective are cautious and sustainable. Valve is gradually coming up with new ideas to make the game easier, make it more interesting, they have a long time ahead to finish the game, but that does not mean that after they transfer everything from the original DotA, they will abandon the project. It would be a crime.
In addition, China and South Korea are not included in the growing popularity of Dota 2, because in these countries under the agreement with Valve the game is not distributed via Steam. Yes, this is not very good, but it would simply not agree to other conditions of the country, so that millions of Chinese players bypass the statistics. Since Valve has no information about how many people play in Dota 2 on unofficial servers, they go just by marking the number of players on Steam, and it more than suits them.
Although the honors for Dota 2 are already behind us and everyone knows how beautiful the game turned out, Valve considers its game as competitive in e-sports, which should grow and develop. Despite the fact that the company holds only one tournament a year, The International, their constant progress in creating an ideal and constant revenue stream to the tournament organizers and teams is different from any other. Cosmetic items such as tickets to the tournament in DotaTV, couriers and sets for heroes created by the organization itself, pennants, are sold for real money for fans through a virtual store. These virtual items generate income for organizations and teams, thanks to which, they have money to which they can organize new tournaments, thereby developing the game. It is very simple and ingenious at the same time, for example, interactive compendiums were able to raise the prize pool of The International 3 from a mark of 1 million dollars to a whopping 2.8 million.
New players in Dota 2 every hour is becoming more and more. For them, Valve offers a variety of help in mastering and understanding the mechanics of the game through a structured learning system and a limited set of characters (20 easy to understand heroes were chosen from more than 100). Directly in the game there are guides and guides that you can include right during the match, they will tell you what is best to buy and what ability to learn better. In addition, Valve, in the future, are going to create in Dota 2 a game system with a coach, as is done in Team Fortress 2. This system of training before real matches allows beginners to thoroughly study the main aspects of the game and start playing, and not quit the game at the first defeat with thoughts that the game is bad and complicated.
If you combine all aspects of the game in Dota 2, then it comes out monstrously complex, and, perhaps, this attracts people into the game. Without hardcore and financial support, the game would not have gained popularity. In the early 2000s, DotA was already popular, but not as much as we now see it. It was a huge future project, then almost unnoticed. True, Valve admitted that they talked about DotA years before the development of Dota 2, and then they already noticed something interesting and attractive in this game, but there was no opportunity then. And today we see an excellent game, which they still decided to create, and did it perfectly.
Perhaps the passion from the fact that you learned to play in such a complex game and defeat the opponents brings incredible pleasure to the players, and so Dota 2 has become the most popular game on Steam, and not only. Without people who are absolutely committed to the game, it has never been able to reach such heights. In the end, this is not a casual game. Valve realized this, and did everything the way they did with Counter-strike, and probably will do so with all the other games.
Although Dota 2 began its journey much later than other competitors of the genre, such as LoL, the approach and strategy from the business perspective are cautious and sustainable. Valve is gradually coming up with new ideas to make the game easier, make it more interesting, they have a long time ahead to finish the game, but that does not mean that after they transfer everything from the original DotA, they will abandon the project. It would be a crime.
In addition, China and South Korea are not included in the growing popularity of Dota 2, because in these countries under the agreement with Valve the game is not distributed via Steam. Yes, this is not very good, but it would simply not agree to other conditions of the country, so that millions of Chinese players bypass the statistics. Since Valve has no information about how many people play in Dota 2 on unofficial servers, they go just by marking the number of players on Steam, and it more than suits them.
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