Dota 2

Dota 2 is a multiplayer online battle arena video game, and the stand-alone sequel to the Defense of the Ancients (DotA) mod. Developed by Valve Corporation, the game was released on July 9, 2013 for Microsoft Windows, utilizing a free-to-play business model. OS X and Linux versions ofDota 2 were released on July 18, 2013. Dota 2 is exclusively available through Valve's content delivery platform, Steam.


The game consists of session-based online multiplayer matches, in which two teams of five players attempt to destroy their opponents' fortified strongholds. Each player controls a "hero" character and, over the course of an individual game, focuses on improving their hero's abilities, acquiring items, and fighting against the other team.


Development of Dota 2 began in 2009, with the hiring of DotA's lead developer, "IceFrog", to serve as the sequel's lead designer. To design the graphics, Valve used an upgraded Source engine to accommodate features necessary for the game. Dota 2 was acclaimed by video game critics as being one of the most successfully delivered multiplayer online battle arena games, with praise for the gameplay experience, considered engaging and rewarding, at the cost of a steep learning curve. The game has become the most played on Steam, with over 500,000 concurrent players, more than the other top nine most-played games combined.


The basic setup of Dota 2 features two opposing factions, the Radiant and the Dire, which maintain strongholds containing critical structures called "Ancients" at opposite corners of a predominantly symmetrical map. The Radiant is based at the southwest corner of the map, while the Dire is based at the northeast corner. The bases of the two factions are connected by three main paths referred to as "lanes", which are guarded by defensive towers and groups of periodically spawned units called "creeps" which traverse their lanes, attacking enemy units and structures upon sight. Two teams of five players are pitted against one another to compete as the primary defenders for each Ancient.[5]


Utilizing one of six selection modes, players choose one of 102 player characters known as "heroes"[6] – strategically powerful units with special abilities that are tasked with defending their teams' Ancient while also looking to destroy their enemies' Ancient. These heroes may level up through combat experience and progress to a maximum level of twenty-five. The heroes' methods of combat are heavily influenced by their primary property, which can be strength, agility, or intelligence. In addition, players are given six inventory slots, which allows for obtainable items to influence their hero's performance. The overall objective of each match is to battle through the opposing force's defenses, and destroy the opponents' Ancient. Because Dota 2 is highly team-oriented, players ideally coordinate with their teams in order to achieve victory. The towers and stronghold defenses are invulnerable to attacks, so long as the towers nearest to the enemy side still stand, and must be destroyed sequentially – a team cannot destroy the enemy's Ancient without first destroying all towers leading up to it in any one lane.[7]


The currency of the game is gold, which is granted steadily at a slow rate. Gold can be accumulated at a much higher rate by killing enemy units or destroying enemy structures. Killing units grants gold solely to the player who killed it; killing heroes grants gold to the killer and any nearby allies; and destroying towers gives gold to all players on the team. Killing enemy creeps, heroes, and towers also provides experience, which allows the player's hero to level up, granting access to more powerful skills and abilities. "Denying" is a feature of the game which allows players to inhibit the enemy's ability to accumulate gold and experience by killing an allied unit or destroying an allied structure before an enemy can do so.[8]


Featured across the map are units referred to as "neutrals", which are not aligned to a faction, primarily located in the forests. Located on the southeast side of the river is a "boss" called "Roshan" who typically requires multiple team members to be killed. Following his death, Roshan drops helping items.[9]


According to Valve's founder and managing director, Gabe Newell, the company's investment in Dota was sparked from the collective interest of several veteran employees, including Team Fortress designer Robin Walker, programmer Adrian Finol and project manager Erik Johnson, all of whom had attempted to partake in team play at a competitive level. As their interest in the game intensified, they began corresponding with DotA's developer, IceFrog, inquiring what long-term plans he had for the mod.[11] The emails eventually culminated in an invitation from Erik Johnson, offering IceFrog a tour of the company's facilities and as a result, hired him to develop a sequel.[12] The first public notification regarding the development of Dota 2 was a blog post made by IceFrog on October 5, 2009, stating that he would be leading a team at Valve.[13] No further word was given until its official announcement on October 13, 2010, when the website of magazine Game Informer revealed specific details about the game and its development,[14] creating traffic on the website to the extent of crashing their servers.[15] Erik Johnson addressed the confusion over the written form of the brand name, citing it as "Dota", rather than "DotA", due to its increasing context as a concept, rather than an acronym for "Defense of the Ancients".[12]


Shortly following a questions and answers session by IceFrog on PlayDotA.com, the Defense of the Ancients official website, elaborating upon his recruitment by Valve, a trademark claim was filed by Valve on August 6, 2010.[16] Steve Feak, the original developer of the DotA Allstars variant and Steve Mescon, the creator of dota-allstars.com, both employees of Riot Games, expressed their concern that Valve did not maintain the right to a trademark for the DotA name, due to their views that it was a community asset. On August 9, 2010, Mescon filed an opposing trademark for "DOTA" on behalf of DotA-Allstars, LLC, (a subsidiary of Riot Games), in order to "protect the work that dozens of authors have done to create the game".[17] Rob Pardo, the executive vice president of Blizzard Entertainment, the developer of Warcraft III, expressed a similar concern, explaining that the DotA name was an asset of their game's community. Blizzard acquired DotA-Allstars, LLC from Riot Games in 2011, to enforce their claim as not only the creators of the World Editor, but to have the rights from the company that made a claim to the mod previously.[18] During the game's unveiling at Gamescom 2011, Gabe Newell explained Valve's perspective on acquiring the trademark, which was that IceFrog desired to develop a direct sequel to DotA and that players would likely recognize it as such.[19] Blizzard filed an opposition against Valve in November 2011, citing theWarcraft III World Editor and their ownership of DotA-Allstars, LLC as a proper claim to the franchise.[18] On May 11, 2012, Blizzard and Valve announced that the dispute had been settled, with Valve retaining the commercial franchising rights to the term "Dota", while Blizzard would change the name of their map from Blizzard DOTA to Blizzard All-Stars.[20]


As the sequel to Defense of the Ancients, the development of Dota 2 was concentrated primarily upon transferring the aspects of its predecessor developed for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion pack, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne to the Source engine, as well as building upon the core gameplay. Dota 2 replaces the factions of the Sentinel and the Scourge from Defense of the Ancients as the Radiant and the Dire respectively, with cornerstone features of the characters' alignment preserved, while ultimately re-establishing their trademark qualities in a new form. Character names, abilities, items, map design and other fine details remain predominantly unchanged, but the integration of these features to the Source engine allows for continued, scaled development to bypass limitations from the Warcraft III World Editor. Further support for the competitive experience is developed through the use of Dota profile matchmaking feature, which scales a player's automated placement in accordance to their estimated skill level. Non-computed and unranked practice matches are made available through the use of either human players, AI bots or solo games. In the debut Q&A, IceFrog stated that Dota 2 will serve as the long-term continuation of the mod, building upon the original gameplay without making too many significant core changes that may alter the overall experience.[12] According to Valve, the company contracted major contributors to DotA's popularity, in order to assist in developing Dota 2, including the mod's original creator known as "Eul", as well as loading screen artist Kendrick Lim of Imaginary Friends Studios.[21] In addition, the composer of Warcraft III, Jason Hayes, was contracted by Valve to collaborate with Tim Larkin for developing Dota 2's musical score.[1] IceFrog has stated that in order to further emphasize Dota 2's premise as a continuation of DotA, contributions would remain consistent from sources outside the main development team.[22]


To accommodate Dota 2, Valve worked to upgrade the Source engine to include new features, such as high-end cloth modeling, improved global lighting, as well as improvements to Steamworks, which includes a wider expansion of utilities, such as player guides and the coaching system.[14]Dota 2 utilizes Valve's Steam software in order to provide social and community functionality for the game. Steam accounts save personal files and settings on the online accounts using the Steam Cloud. Dota 2 also features multiple options of live spectating, in tradition of competitive Valve titles. The game host has the option to fill open slots with AI bots. Another option allows the host to determine if AI bots or other human players will be used to fill the vacated slot of a disconnected player. Valve plans to introduce a coaching system to allow for more experienced players to tutor newer players.[14] In addition to the online platform established by Steam, Dota 2 will support local area network (LAN) multiplayer connectivity.[23]


Coinciding with the second edition of The Defense tournament hosted by joinDOTA in June 2012, Valve implemented the tournament support feature. Tournaments may be available for spectating in-game via the purchase of a tournament pass in the Dota Store, which provides an alternative to viewing live streams online. This feature supports previous and live matches from tournaments. In addition, teams may be formally identified by the game's software, which automatically recognizes games with players as being team matches and catalogs them as such.[24]


The rising popularity of Dota 2 led Valve to produce a number of products stylized after the game, including apparel, accessories and prints via the Valve Store. In addition, Valve has secured various licensing contracts various with third-party producers. Prior to the public unveiling of Dota 2 at The International 2011, SteelSeries unveiled the SteelSeries QcK+ Dota 2 Edition, the first of a line of products to be produced by the gaming peripherals manufacturer.[25] On September 25, 2012, Weta Workshop, which developed the Aegis of the Immortal trophy for the champions ofThe International 2012, announced a prop product line that would include statues, weapons and armor based around the Dota 2 theme.[26] On February 10, 2013, the National Entertainment Collectibles Association unveiled its new toy line, including character-themed actions figures, based on Dota 2 at the American International Toy Fair.[27]


Beyond the internal testing of the game at Valve, Dota 2 was first made visible to the public at Gamescom 2011, with the first edition of The International. To coincide with this event, Valve opened the sign-up for invites for the beta, with invites being sent out following the conclusion of Gamescom.[28] During the debut, Gabe Newell speculated that Dota 2 would likely ship in 2012, despite original plans for a full release in late 2011.[29] On September 23, 2011, Valve scrapped its previous development and release plans for Dota 2, which would have kept the game in its closed beta phase for over a year, in order to accommodate the full transfer of intellectual property developed for the original DotA. The new plan described by IceFrog looked to release the beta at the nearest possible date and to implement the remaining heroes afterwards. Simultaneously, Valve announced that the non-disclosure agreement for the beta was being lifted, allowing testers to discuss the game and their experiences publicly.[30] Dota 2 transitioned into launch mode on June 21, 2013 and was officially released on July 9, 2013.[3] Upon release, the number of unique players monthly was recorded at being beyond three million.[31]


As part of a plan to create a social network based around Dota 2, Gabe Newell announced in April 2012 that the game would be free-to-play, with an accentuation on player contributions to the community.[32] On June 1, 2012, the Dota development team at Valve formally confirmed that the game would be free-to-play with no added cost for having the full roster of heroes and item inventory readily available.[33] Income for Dota 2 would, however, be maintained through the exclusively cosmetic Dota Store, where players could purchase in-game items.[34] Until the game's release, players were able to purchase an early access bundle, which included a digital copy of Dota 2, along with several in-game cosmetic items.[35] The Dota Store comprises custom creations developed by Valve, as well as products from the Steam Workshop, which is a system in which users may submit creations for review by Valve and if successful, would be permanently incorporated into Dota 2. The market model was fashioned after Team Fortress 2, which became successful in June 2011 and had reimbursed cosmetic designers with $3.5 million of income as of the free-to-play announcement.[33]


In order to abide by the standards set by the economic legislation of individual countries, Valve opted to contract with nationally-based developers for publishing. On October 19, 2012, the leadingBeijing-based video game developer and publisher, Perfect World, announced the acquisition of the exclusive rights to publish and distribute Dota 2 in China.[36] On November 9, 2012, a similar deal was made with the Tokyo-based developer and publisher, Nexon Co. Ltd., with publishing and distribution for Japan and South Korea being provided by the company.[37]


PC Gamer reviewed Dota 2 in September 2012 stating the game was "an unbelievably deep and complex game that offers the purest sequel to the original DotA. Rewarding like few others, but tough", giving it a rating of 85/100.[47] Following the first public showing of Dota 2, the game won IGN's public opinion-based People's Choice Award, defeating other anticipated games, including Battlefield 3, Diablo III, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim andGuild Wars 2.[46] In December 2012, PC Gamer listed Dota 2 as a nominee for the 2012 Game of the Year award, as well as the best electronic sports title of the year.[48]


In May 2013, it was reported that Dota 2 had reached almost 330,000 concurrent players[49] and holds the record for the game with the most concurrent users in Steam history, breaking its own record set in March the same year.[50] Simultaneous with this benchmark, it was determined that the concurrent number of Dota 2 players in May 2013 outweighed the number of players for the rest of Steam's top ten most-played games combined.[51]


Dota 2 was very well received by critics. On aggregate review website Metacritic, the game maintains a weighted score of 90 out of 100, based on 31 reviews.[39] On GameRankings, the game has a score of 89.27%, based on reviews from fifteen critics.[38] Adam Biessener, the editor who authored the reveal piece for Dota 2 for Game Informer magazine in 2010, praised Valve for maintaining the same mechanics and game balance that made the DotAmod successful nearly a decade prior[8] and Quintin Smith of Eurogamer described Dota 2 as the "supreme form of the MOBA which everyone else working in the genre is trying to capture like lightning in a bottle".[41] In September 2013 Dota 2 was reported as having 500,000 concurrent players, with more simultaneous players than the other top 9 Steam games combined.[52]


The depth, delivery and overall balance of Dota 2 were generally the most common positively attributed features of the game, serving in large as aspects to overlook its steep learning curve. InGameSpot's 9/10 review, Martin Gaston described the game as "complicated, exhausting, and sometimes cruel, but... an incredibly satisfying and exciting multiplayer game."[42] Phill Cameron of IGN praised Dota 2 as being "amazing", complimenting the rewarding experience, longevity, variety and free-to-play basis, but criticized the game's steep learning curve.[43] Patrick Hancock ofDestructoid described Dota 2 as a "hallmark of excellence", acknowledging that "there may be flaws, but they are negligible and won't cause massive damage to what is a supreme title".[53] Matt Lees of VideoGamer.com called Dota 2 an "amazing and inherently overwhelming game" in the site's review.[45] In PC Gamer's 90/100 review, Chris Thursten described the game as a "deep and rewarding competitive game."[44]


While the majority of reviewers gave Dota 2 highly positive reviews, a common criticism was that the game maintains a steep learning curve that requires exceptional commitment to overcome. While providing a moderately positive review that praised Valve's product stability, Fredrik Åslund from the Swedish division of Gamereactor described his first match of Dota 2 as one of the most humiliating and inhospitable experiences of his gaming career, citing the learning curve and players' attitudes as unwelcoming.[54] Benjamin Danneberg of GameStar alluded to the learning curve to rather be a "learning cliff", calling the newcomer's experience to be painful, with the tutorial feature new to the Dota franchise only being partially successful.[55] In a review for the Metronewspaper, Dota 2 was criticized for not compensating for the flaws with the learning curve from DotA, as well as the predominantly negative online community.[56]


In a 2008 article of video game industry website Gamasutra, editor Michael Walbridge cited Defense of the Ancients as the most popular mod in the world, as well as one of the most popular competitive titles, with its strongest presence in Asia, Europe and North America.[57] To ensure the transition of DotA players to Dota 2, Valve invited and sponsored sixteen of the most accomplished teams to compete and showcase the game's capabilities with its public debut at The International, a global championship hosted at Gamescom 2011 in Cologne, Germany, with a grand prize of one million dollars.[58]


The International became an annual championship tournament, with the venue changing to Seattle, Washington, United States.[59] In 2012, the tournament was hosted during PAX Prime,[60] with Chinese team Invictus Gaming going on to defeat the defending champions, Natus Vincere.[61] In its third year, The International reclaimed its previous title as the largest prize pool in electronic sports history, exceeding the two million dollar prize pool from the League of Legends Season 2 World Championship with a total prize pool of over $2.8 million USD, thanks to the sales of the interactive compendium.[62][63] The 2013 championship was won by the Swedish team Alliance, whose prize exceeded $1.4 million USD.[64]


Following the inaugural event of The International, several electronic sports tournaments began to transition from DotA to Dota 2, including theElectronic Sports World Cup.[65] DreamHack would also support Dota 2 in 2011, following a year without support for the original, on account of the other multiplayer online battle arena titles Heroes of Newerth and League of Legends.[66] By the end of its first year in its beta phase, Dota 2 was one of the highest-paying eSport titles of 2011, second only to StarCraft II.[67] Dota 2 began as an official title for the World Cyber Games annual event in 2012.[68] The Electronic Sports League began a seasonal tournament for Dota 2 called the RaidCall EMS One in 2013, which was the largest independent tournament for Dota 2 by the beginning of 2013.[69] On June 12, 2013, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Nexon announced the investment of two billion South Korea won, (approximately 1.7 million USD), into amateur and professional leagues in South Korea for 2013, to coincide with the launch of their distribution agreement in the fall of that year.[70] Erik Johnson commented in an interview that the implementation of the game's LAN feature would be intended to promote smaller, independent competitions and local tournaments.[23]