Can Anime Save Dota 2?
Author: Hawk Live LLC
Last updated:
Valve Corporation is an American video game developer that has made a huge contribution to the development of the gaming industry.
The list of its achievements includes:
- The legendary game series: Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, Dota 2, Counter Strike which are popular to our days.
- Game engines: GoldSrc, Source, Source 2 - which turned out to be so flexible that several dozen new mechanics were invented on them and many unique and incredible games were created.
- Software: Steam, Valve Anti-Cheat, SteamOS.
- Hardware: Steam Machines, Steam Controller, Valve Index.
And this is not the whole list.
Projects from Valve manage to gain hundreds of thousands or even millions of users, and be at the top, even if the games are more than 7 years old.
And yet, Valve is very willing to take risks. The continuation of the Half-Life series in the VR format, Dota Underlords, which was recreated by modification, or the release of Artifact carried their risks, and some of them, alas, were not justified. The recent announcement of the Dota anime series has all the chances to both shoot and remain forgotten in the depths of the Internet.
Valve Correct Decisions!
Dota 2 is one of the three most successful multiplayer projects from Valve. The game gained popularity right from the start. In addition to the successful The International, developers often delighted players with all kinds of events and campaigns. Also, Valve has always prepared all sorts of events for the main tournament of the year. But from 2019, the game began to lose its audience a lot and even Battle Pass 2020 and the recent release of Diretide did not return the number of people that it was several years ago. And patch 7.28 and the patrol system never met with success.
So what's the problem? The answer to this lies in the attitude of the company itself towards the gaming community. Valve, despite the huge number of players and users, ignores advice and requests, leaving everything to chance. So, for several years, holiday events in Team Fortress 2, operations in CSGO and various events in Dota 2, have been held without taking into account the wishes of the players. As a result, the events quickly bored the user, as they were delayed and practically did not receive updates.
Valve's success in its aggressiveness
Valve is a company that will never listen to the opinion of the majority and will do everything for its users as it sees fit. The secret of their success lies in aggressive and conflicting decisions. And, all the same, understatement, only fuels the interest of the public.
For example, in 1999 with the success of Team Fortress Classic and Counter-Strike, Valve began redefining the traditional methods of organizing online games through the World Opponent Network. On March 22, 2002, Steam was first presented at the Game Developers Conference, and already at the end of 2003, Valve announced the closure of WON and the mandatory installation of Steam for online games.
What about games? Valve has never run annoying ads and has always tried to present its product ready-made. In turn, this gave rise to many memes that the company is not releasing Half-Life 3.
Unlike the same Riot Games, which in 2019 promised its users an animated series on the universe of its game, Valve, without asking for an opinion and not in any way warming up the audience's interest, simply took and announced an animated series - DOTA: Dragon's Blood.
Almost 9 years later, Dota 2 players again saw an unusual solution from Valve. The announcement of the Dota anime was undoubtedly unexpected and certainly attracted public attention. During the week, the announced video was watched by more than 2.5 million people, and social networks are constantly teeming with gossip about the plot and possible new seasons. But can a Netflix series help Valve bring new players to the game?
Anime, TV series, and movies save games!
There are many film adaptations for games these days, but are they all successful and how have they influenced the games?
In order to answer this question, consider the most popular film adaptations that exist at the moment.
Super Mario Bros
Almost 30 years have passed since the world saw the first film in the game's universe. "Super Mario Bros", which was filmed in 1993, was added to the Guinness World Records as the first feature film based on a video game. Despite the fact that the film acquired cult status, it failed miserably at the box office. Nevertheless, notoriety is still fame. People love to hate this movie, which has become a classic.
Mortal Kombat
As the saying goes, "The first pancake is always a lumpy one" but Mortal Kombat - filmed in 1995, although did not earn high ratings from critics, but received popular recognition and raised $195 million, popularized many heroes and left one of the most known memes. "You will be next!"
Warcraft
The total gross for the film "Warcraft" worldwide was $439 million. It thus became the first and only game-based film to surpass the $400 million thresholds.
A month after the release of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment released the 6th expansion for its MMORPG called “Legion”. In the first 24 hours since launch, WoW: Legion sold 3.3 million copies, making it the fastest-selling add-on to the game in 2016.
The Witcher
At the end of October 2019, after the trailer and the announcement of the exact release date of The Witcher, the game's management announced the sale of over 6.84 million copies of the game. And already on December 20, after the premiere of the series, the number of sales increased to 7.63 million copies. In such a short period, the series was able to increase the number of sold copies of the game by 27%, and the number of simultaneously playing players exceeded 103 thousand people. This is more than in 2015, when the game was released.
In January 2020, Netflix announced that over 76 million viewers watched its first season in the first month after the series release. The Witcher became the second most-watched TV series in 2019.
Sonic the Hedgehog
"Sonic the Hedgehog" earned $58 million in the first three days, and in four (including Monday weekend) - $70 million. Thus, Sonic set a record for debut weekend fees for film adaptations of computer games.
According to official figures, as of 2018, more than 800 million copies of the Sonic franchise have been sold worldwide. Since 2018, Sega has successfully piqued public interest with the announcement of a movie set in the gaming universe.
For 2 years, the company managed to sell more than 120 million copies of the game in just one wait. In addition, Paramount Pictures are already preparing a sequel to the film for 2022.
Monster Hunter
The first video teaser of the film based on the game was released on June 18, 2020. It attracted a new audience to the game and also was interesting for experienced players.
On October 14, after Sony Pictures released the official trailer for the film, it also became known that the game developer Capcom will collaborate with the main character of the film in game Monster Hunter World. Thus, the company again managed to attract new users to the game. Average online players grew by 65%
The premiere of the film took place on December 3, 2020. The critics' and viewers' ratings were very low, and fans of the game franchise were even unhappy. The film's budget was $60 million, and the worldwide box office brought the film only $26 million.
Meanwhile, Monster Hunter: World became Capcom's best-selling title with 16.8 million copies.
TOTAL
Valve, as always, does what it wants. Users were presented with a fact, but this only increases their hopes for further actions from the company. Valve, in turn, is again silent. What will be their next steps?
The number of people interested in the release of DOTA: Dragon's Blood is clearly large, and the further success of the game in one way or another depends on the quality of the series. But this is not the only thing that is needed for the game at the moment. Valve can no longer lower the quality bar and it is time to take control of the situation with the game.
