Valve's Action-RTS Dota 2 and the IceFrog Success Story

Back in 2003, a pseudononymous developer known as Eul created "Defense of the Ancients" using the custom map creation tools bundled with Blizzard Entertainment's WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos. Defense of the Ancients, or DotA as it would eventually be known, wasn't anything new--in fact, it was largely a takeoff of the Aeon of Strife map from Blizzard's previous real-time strategy game StarCraft. But DotA's legacy would outshine Aeon of Strife entirely.

As many custom map makers and modders do, Eul eventually abandoned development of his map, and others rushed to capitalize on the void by offering their own updates or new takes on the map. Eventually, one variant called "DotA Allstars" ended up shepherded by the reclusive IceFrog. And the rest is history: DotA Allstars became the de facto DotA variant, and transcended the WarCraft III custom map scene to become a game more popular than Counter-Strike in internet cafes, a map with its own cash tournaments and e-sports players, and even the subject of a chart-topping song by Basshunter. Limited by the aging game engine and constraints of WarCraft III, developers and fans of DotA set out and created their own standalone versions of the game: Demigod, Heroes of Newerth and League of Legends are among the "DotA clones". But IceFrog continued on his own path, publishing new updates quietly for the old Warcraft III map. In the background, however, he was working with AAA-game developer Valve Software to produce a standalone sequel, DotA 2 (for more info, read "A Tale of Two DotAs".)

Dota 2 isn't exactly a game for the record books, but it's worth examining because it is evidence of the increasingly common trends becoming part of mainstream gaming. First off, it is a sort of gaming cinderella story: a dedicated programmer or fan masters the editing tools available to him or her, and creates a successful mod of an existing game or their own proof-of-concept. These games are inherently limited, but the ingenuity is enough to get them noticed. Valve has been doing its share of the noticing; first, it gobbled up personnel who worked on the DigiPen physics and wormhole game Narbacular Drop, and created from its basis the critically-acclaimed Portal (1). Now, it recruited the best-known developer of DotA and gave him a team to bring his vision to a much larger stage. Creating a sequel to a highly successful video game isn't rocket science, and to an extent neither is getting the original developers to do it, but it's become increasingly common as big games get more expensive--yet casual games can break out more easily.

Dota 2 also sits at the intersection of other new gaming trends. The first is that the game could follow some of its DotA brethren and be free to play upfront, with monetization in the form of in-game ads, microtransations, or exclusive content. Free-to-play games have been around for years; you could argue the concept goes back to the now-archiac shareware from the 1990s. In recent years it has become a much more mainstream and cross-genre tactic, especially as larger publishers started flirting with the idea (2). League of Legends was the first standalone DotA clone and competitor to take their route, but Dota 2 may supplant it if it goes with a similar approach. Valve has recently experimented with it by offering their old game Team Fortress 2 for free, with monetization from in-game customizations and character items. Valve appears to have adopted a wait-and-see approach to how they will monetize their product (3), but there's no doubt that one of the reasons for DotA's success was its universality; it played well on old computers and was a free download itself, the only costs to entry being a copy of parent game WarCraft III (which can be found for south of $20 or less online or in bargain bins).

And the distinction between old and new is the greatest toss-up in whether Dota 2 will be a success. Many of the "old guard" of DotA moved to Heroes of Newerth, but would likely be swayed back by a true DotA successor, especially given that IceFrog has treated the game as more an extension of DotA than a true sequel--meaning the same balance tweaks and fiddling of the old game will continue to occur. But much of the original's gameplay flavor depended on bugs and pathing issues of an outdated game, and a modern approach would still undoubtably feel "wrong" to some. DotA's success was likely lightning in a bottle, and it remains to be seen whether the efforts and money of a big developer can recapture it.

Dota 2 is due to be released in 2012, but by then the already crowded market for action-RTS, Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) or DotA-genre games will be even busier (4); Rise of Immortals, currently in beta, will probably be out, and Blizzard's own take on the game with their own characters will be released for StarCraft II--replicating the conditions of the original DotA's success. Seasoned DotA players won't have to worry that a successor to the aging Warcraft map will never appear; rather, the trouble will be which one assumes DotA's place as the one true map to rule them all.

References
* (1) Dan Ryckert (March 8, 2010). "From Narbacular Drop To Portal". Game Informer. Retrieved August 23, 2011.
* (2) Alec Meer (March 12, 2009). "Is Free Really the Future of Gaming?" TechRadar. Retrieved August 23, 2011.
* (3) Matt Liebl (August 18, 2011). "Dota 2 Delayed Until 2012". Gamezone. Retrieved August 22, 2011.
* (4) Richard Cobbett (August 23, 2011). "DotA vs Dota 2: Valve and Blizzard Go to War". PC Gamer. Retrieved August 24, 2011.

Read more video gaming stories by David Fuchs: "The Battle of Hardcore and Casual Gamers" / "Great Overshadowed Video Games You'd Forgotten" / "The Next Great Console War" / "The Future of Mac Gaming"