http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/08/01/valve-to-hold-1000000-dota-2-tournament-at-gamescom/



Most companies release concept art, a few screenshots, MAYBE a trailer for their upcoming game before they show actual gameplay. Apparently no one told Valve because they are having a Dota2 tournament at Gamescom with 16 hand-picked teams from all over the world and a $1 million cash prize for the winning team. The event will be live-streaming in four languages for anyone to view.

A little info on dota 2 for those who don't know what it is; It's a sequel to the popular Warcraft 3 mod Defence of the Ancients (DotA). It's being developed by IceFrog, the current developer of DotA (the mod) and an employee of Valve. Dota2 will use an updated version of the Source engine and it will be released on Steam for both PC and Mac OS X. The game will feature extensive multiplayer elements such as player coaching (experienced players teaching beginners), spectators and some functionality for live-streaming matches.


As a huge DotA fan and a current League of Legends player, all I can say is WOOOOHOOOOOOO!!!!! :woot:

The MOBA genre has been exploding in popularity. League of Legends has over a million players every day, and that's just one of the several knockoffs out there. Valve has been very wise in picking up DOTA and making it their own commercial game, and entering the esports scene with a bang. I think it's only a matter of time before the big publishers like Activision and EA want in on the action, but by then Valve will already have established itself as the leader.

If Valve played a character in Star Wars it'd definitely be Luke Skywalker.

The prize should be Gordon Freeman's armour (with crowbar included) or a fully functional Portal gun.

[Insert 'where is my Ep3?' complaint here]

Hope it goes into Open Beta soon after that. Then I will be done with LoL and HoN forever, I'd say.

Indeed!

Is the prize money actually $1M worth of empty Twinkie wrappers?

"I got hungry." - Gabe Newell

And Episode 3 is delayed for yet another week

I've played DOTA and currently play LOL, and I think this is awesome. Watching such a high level of play is always fun.

I tried playing DotA back in the day, but never liked it, perhaps that was because I had no idea what I was doing. However, I've been playing League of Legends recently, and I'm really enjoying it. Now that Heroes of Newerth has gone free-to-play, I've started playing it as well, but it's a lot less noob friendly. So, I'm definitely looking forward to DotA 2, and can't wait to watch this tournament.

Yes, the Action RTS/MOBA genre is exploding. Hopefully DotA 2 will be every bit as good as I hope it to be. If they price it as a full game, it needs a lot more content than other MOBA's offer.

Holy crap. I've never played DotA (not much of a PC gamer. My desktop was top notch about four years ago), but this will still interest me very much. Any kind of event celebrating extraordinary gaming skill is worth supporting by watching in my books, and as an RTS fan I'm sure I'll be able to appreciate at least some of what I'm watching.

Has there ever been a tournament for video games with such a large prize before?

I have a feeling DOTA2 is going to be free or at a reduced cost. They keep citing DOTA2 as the reason why they are experimenting with microtransactions.

So like free with purchasable ingame stuff? (Presumably skins for heroes)

If it is free we better not have to buy the heroes like in LoL.

Go watch some http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD083D25DC680FF18, I have a feeling you'll like it


As far as I know... no


Maybe something similar to what they did with Portal 2? An in-game store with a bunch of aesthetic items for sale

At the very least I would presume this but I'd think they wouldn't reference it nearly as much if they were just doing aesthetic items.