2024-02-16

Race Into Space

More than a game

The evolution of Dota from a modification to a tournament with a prize pool of $46 million

Creating something from nothing – that’s what happened when the great idea, the invention of the worldwide meaning, may appear in people`s minds. There are plenty of stories about the success of projects, which were made by people in inspiration time and reached the highest heights. One of the most popular games nowadays – Dota 2, is not an exception. From the simple modification to the game with the most prominent esports tournaments, several hundred professional Dota 2 teams, and the greatest players of all time. The game’s history lasted for more than 20 years up now and still is one of the most played games worldwide.

1. Combinations of the best

Recording the history of Dota from the time of its origin, we can see that it begins a long time ago from the StarCraft map ‘Aeon of Strife’ and after that was transported as a modification for Warcraft 3 The Frozen Throne – Defence of the Ancients custom game. From this point in time, it starts to be similar to what we can see in it now. Tower, minicamps, heroes, skills, items – almost all of these things were transferred to the new game, which in 2009 appeared not as a modification but as a unique product – DotA. After that, we were able to see the start, the true origin of esports in Dota with first tournaments and professional teams, who competed in the very first modification of the original Dota game. Many characters were transformed and taken from Dota 1, as now we can see them as Wraith king, Invoker, Queen of Pain, and others.

After some time, in 2011, Gamescom was introduced more known to us Dota 2, with the first draft of graphics and not so big pool of heroes compared to now. Many items, map settings, and mechanics were transformed into a game known as Dota 2. From the very first Dota 2 event in 2011, on which Na`Vi took their first victory, till now there were a lot of exciting changes, which developed the community of the game into one of the biggest around the esports industry, taking count of more than 500 professional Dota 2 teams all over the world.

2. How big Dota 2 esports is now?

Breaking Dota2 news about substantial prize pools of the tournaments, global community of esports and games in which we can see games like Dota and other multiplayer projects with the possibility to find in professional teams, – all these things are signals that nowadays scaling of esports industry is enormous, and even more than some kind of sports which take their origin in ancients times.

Speaking about statistics, we can see that auditory is pretty big; for example, at International 2019, which took place in China, about 10000 tickets were sold in 27 seconds, according to the statistics of Valve. To summarise the event, about 30000 tickets on the offline event were sold immediately (not speaking of the hilarious amount of online access).

Now we daily can see a current number of players and people interested in gaming by simply watching statistics on Twitch, which shows that during the events, the activity of people arises to 300-500k per game.

3. Meta

The popularity of esports is growing with each second you read these words, trying to tell the excellent origin story of one of the most popular games nowadays – Dota 2, developing from the simple modification to the whole game in several years and becoming the most-watched esports game in the industry. Big prize pools, professional Dota 2 teams, and wild tournaments are all you need during matches. Find interesting facts about creating the Dota 2 game and even the famous The International.