Arguably one of the most popular multiplayer video games today, big and small tournaments on “DoTA 2” are actually ensuring the durability of the franchise among gamers.
In addition to high-stakes tournament being regularly organized by game developer Valve Corporation, groups of gaming fanatics have also organized small tournaments with the intention of bringing in new gamers to the franchise.
Tournaments on “DoTA 2” these days are classified according to two main categories – professional and amateur. The professional tournaments are often the big-moneyed competition where the prize money can go as high as $3 million or more.
The “DoTA 2” Asian Championships which was held in China early this year had a final prize pool of over $3 million raised through compendium sales.
In fact, from the time that “DoTA 2” was launched by Valve Corporation on Microsoft, OS X, and Linux as a free-to-play game in July 2013 up to February 1, 2015, over $25 million in prize money has been awarded in tournaments with eight players winning the most money across all competitive video games.
A stand-alone sequel
“DoTA 2” is a multiplayer online battle arena video game which is the stand-alone sequel to the “Defense of the Ancients Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos” and “Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne” mod. DoTA was obviously derived as an abbreviation of Defense of the Ancients.
Valve Corporation has made the game available through its content delivery platform called Steam. The game is played in matches involving two teams of five players, each of which occupies a stronghold at a corner of the game map.
The premise of the game is like an alliance battle. While each player is part of a team, he is responsible for controlling the fate of his own character and fortress to survive and win.
Each stronghold contains a building called the “Ancient” which the opposite team must destroy to win the match. Each player controls a “Hero” character and focuses on leveling up, collecting gold, acquiring items and fighting against the other team to achieve victory.
The development of “DoTA 2” began way back in 2009 when Valve Corporation tapped the services of IceFrog, which developed the “DoTA” mod previously, as lead designer.
Gamers and critics gave rave reviews to “DoTA 2” for its gameplay, production quality, and faithfulness to its predecessor. As not all video games are perfect, it was criticized also for its steep learning curve and inhospitable community, which means new gamers would find it difficult to immediately learn the game or get help from other gamers.
Since its launch, “DoTA 2” has become the most actively played game on Steam, with daily peaks of over 900,000 concurrent players.
A popular “DoTA 2” tournament
One of the more popular “DoTA 2” tournaments is the recently concluded The Impress Dad Indy 500, which just had its second competition during the year on July 4 to 5.
Organized by FaceIt, a group of “DoTA 2” fanatics, the tournament gives a prize of $500 to the winning team, which was won by casual pickup team E-LAB over the weekend.
Game fanatic and commentator James Harding, who is also known as 2GD, says that they have made a conscious decision to not only focus on the professional scene anymore with The Impress Dad Indy 500 in conjunction with FaceIt. He says they are hoping of bringing new players into the game with the tournament.
During the interview with Harding, he was also with Finnish Hannu ‘Netukka’ Saarivaara, one of the players from the winning E-LAB team.
Harding said that they are planning to raise the prize pool eventually. He disclosed that the first four tournaments that their group is running are meant as test products with the goal of delivering an enjoyable experience and exposure to the “DoTA 2” teams.
He said that as an eSport, it is important that there is an engagement between the players and the audience, which has been great thus far, notes Join Dota.