After months of silence, Valve finally spoke out and gave its thoughts on the Dota 2 esports scene. The last time anyone heard anything from Valve related to this was the announcement of delaying The International 2020.
There has been some discontent focused at Valve as it appeared that the developer had “forgotten” the competitive scene. Other games had managed to continue and had support of the main organization despite the ongoing pandemic. However, for Dota 2, most of the tournaments that have run lately have been possible due to third-party organizers.
It has not been good when you think about it. Players like Darly Koh “iceiceice” Pei Xang had said that they won’t be playing in any tournaments unless it was part of the DPC. There have also been some roster shuffles and some teams have even disbanded.
So what does Valve have to say?
In a post, Valve said that they had been looking for a way to host the TI and even DPC events. This was back in the spring, by the way. When summer rolled around, Valve said that this meant “cross regional play would be unlikely for a period of time” and added that there were tournaments “where teams from certain countries had to be excluded after qualifying due to abrupt travel restrictions and complications.”
For Valve this was important because while it was possible to host DPC events without a crowd, it was important to have all teams be in one venue for cross region competition. In a way, it’s easy to see how this is indeed a consideration, especially given that pings in different countries vary. Having all teams in one place would mean that the tournament would continue unhindered.
So what’s going to be the plan, then? If Valve is to be believed, they revealed there’s going to be at least four third party events and leagues for EU and CIS while there’s expected to be three for China. Valve said that there are other events in the preliminary planning stages as well. The company did add that “there are still going to be a lot of teams, casters, organizers and fans around the world that are not going to be meaningfully served based on the current trajectory and that is our fault for not pushing on those and supporting them enough.” Valve went on to say that they have “started reaching out to many more tournament organizers to offer help and financial support in order to be able to create increased coverage globally for the remainder of the year.”
Basically, what Valve is saying is that they’ll try to give some sort of help when it comes to holding regional tournaments for the rest of the year. It’s a good start considering that the community has more than rallied and managed to breach the $35 million mark for the The International 2020 prize pool. However, with only a few months left in the year, it might be a case of too little too late, for this year anyway.
Still, Valve hopes that DPC is going to return in the early part of next year.
Overall, this message from Valve still doesn’t really give the Dota 2 community that much. There are no set dates and everything appears to be reactive while Valve is waiting for this to be more predictable and restrictions to be eased.
Currently there are still tournaments happening, but so far these are Tier 2 and Tier 3-level competitions. Let’s see what happens a few months from now and if Valve is going to be more proactive.
