Why esports is killing Dota 2?

Author: Hawk Live LLC

Last updated: 05:46, 22.12.2025

Esports is recognized as an official sport in many countries. And it is not surprising, because the main reason for the growth in popularity of esports is the huge audience that loves and plays video games. As in ordinary sports, people are interested in watching the achievements of other players.

Major tournaments often gather overcrowded sports arenas and millions in online broadcasts. As with any major sports discipline, large prize money is often raffled off in eSports.

For example, The International boasts the largest prize pool in the esports industry, with over $40 million in 2020. Valve does not receive this money from sponsors, like their competitors, but from the players themselves, that is, the prize pool is almost entirely formed through crowdfunding.

Epic Games is also actively involved in the development of esports. In 2019, Fortnite hosted a $10 million tournament.

Riot Games annually hosts major LoL tournaments with a prize pool of up to $5 million.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is another esports discipline from Valve, in which tournaments with a prize pool of $1 million are held every season, but the salaries of esports players are usually higher than in other disciplines.

Where does esports money come from?

Due to the huge growth in popularity of esports in various disciplines, there are many organizations interested in hosting tournaments. The largest championships are usually held with the support of several companies at once.

These organizations include manufacturers of computer hardware and peripherals, game publishers and media outlets, esports operators, bookmakers, and more.

All of these organizations are interested in the results of the advertisements they run on official broadcasts. And from the Twitch data, you can see for sure that the results are very positive.

But despite the fact that Dota 2 has the largest audience engagement in esports, it is rapidly losing player interest in the game itself.

How does esports affect Dota 2?!

How does it happen that esports, which brings great popularity to the game, begins to destroy the interest of the average user in the game?

From the previous article, it became known that when a new player came to the game, he encounters many difficulties on his way, such as the lack of training guides, a toxic community, the length of the game sessions, etc.

The problem is that esports has directly begun to influence the development of the game as a whole. Valve has taken a risky step by investing all its efforts in hosting The International. This decision gave the game a huge jump in popularity. Until 2016, Dota 2 was at its peak.

For more than 6 years, after the first The International, Dota 2 inspired a lot of players' interest in the very idea of becoming an esports player, because the prize money at such a tournament was huge. But this approach to promoting the game through the popularity of eSports has caused the loss of new players at the present time.

Will Partin, an analyst at Data & Society, claims that:

On its current trajectory, the only real winners in Dota 2 are a handful of elite teams and Valve. Everyone else—tournaments, teams, and all but a few players—has to fight for scraps, or leave.

Also, do not exclude the fact that it is not so easy to get into esports. Esports organizations that select candidates for their teams consider only skill players from the top rankings by region. And if we take into account that there are less than 1.7% of such players, then not everyone has a chance to become an esports player.

If this continues, will Dota 2 close?

Esports has long-tuned Dota 2 for itself. Starting in 2016, Valve stopped releasing any content for players altogether.

New sets, huge patches with new mechanics, compendiums - all this was done for the successful and colorful holding of the main event of the YEAR! The International has taken all the attention for itself. And if this continues, then the game will be played by 500 people who will amuse the audience by playing their own Dota.

But what about 99% of players who play the game for their own pleasure? After all, not all Dota 2 players want to become e-sportsmen.

Over the past few years, active Dota 2 players have seen many changes in the basic mechanics of the game: hero talents, fountains, outposts, aghanim shards. All this greatly complicates even that difficult gameplay, which ultimately turns the gameplay into a monotonous expectation of victory or, more likely, defeat. All this is only pleasant for the viewer but so difficult for many players to familiarize themselves. Clement Puppey Ivanov - Team Secret player said that:

The more difficult the game, the fewer people play it.

If Valve continues to ignore its users, it could soon affect tournament views as well.

The company has said more than once that they will begin to pay attention not only to the e-sports scene but also to its players. The release of the legendary Diretide event and patrol system has given players some hope, and this can be clearly seen in the graph.

But long feedback from the company itself, and again, the lack of regular events makes it feel much stronger.

On top of that, Valve has been releasing patches over the past few years to make Dota a more team-based game. This solution undoubtedly works and shows viewers memorable moments on broadcasts of major tournaments. But hardly works for casual players. Dota 2 initially does not teach or familiarize new players with the gameplay and the concept of "team play". Experienced users do not forgive even the slightest mistakes for beginners, thus aggravating the situation. Most players would rather insult the teammate than give them a couple of good advice. In addition, the very concept of "team play" will reread the very essence of the game, namely, having fun!

Do not forget about one of the main problems of the project - boosters. With the release of the Overwatch system, players had to get rid of them with their own hands. But again, due to the abuse of this system by the players and the weak punishments, this had no effect. Yaroslav «NS» Kuznetsov, an analyst and commentator, speculated in the «Storm Snails» podcast that the game does not have an influx of new users, and a sharp reduction in such a number of attackers will naturally affect online games in general.

Valve just needs to ban all boosters, ban all smurfs, ban all buyers and so on. All these accounts that the system already detects and fires. Because it will actually shorten online, and quite significantly. It's not half of the players, but maybe 5-10% of the players will be banned. People can just drop the game.

For you to be able to afford to do this, you need to have new players.

Why doesn't Valve pay attention to such problems ?!

Working at Valve may seem like a dream come true for any developer, but is it really so?

In 2017, the Handbook for new employees was added to the network. A lot of the points in this guide say that all employees in the company are equal, and there is no one who is higher in rank.

Valve is flat. It’s our shorthand way of saying that we don’t have any management, and nobody “reports to” anybody else. We do have a founder/president, but even he isn’t your manager. This company is yours to steer

But then who manages the projects and why does the company so often fire people?

Morf-designer is a journalist and blogger who conducted an investigation and found out that Valve does not encourage its employees to simply fix bugs, since such work does not bring any profit to the company at all. And if bug fixes and hotfixes do not bring any money, such an employee is fired.

In addition, from the words of a former Valve employee, Richard Geldreich, it became known that employees in the company should listen to the ideas of the company's senior partners and shareholders. They, in turn, can suggest tasks that may bring profit to the company, and in this case the employee will not be fired. And this is not so bad, Valve can continue to fire people until there are workers with ideas that will bring the company even more profit.

Interesting, so who then came up with the idea to launch Battle Pass 2020 without The International?