DotA players believe fiercely that Defense of the Ancients Allstars has a chance to become a popular and competitive game. Are they just too attached; caught up in a dream of being sponsored by JMC, coL or other sponsors that haven’t stretched into DotA? The rattling on Ventrilo consists of planning for potential sponsorships and big tournaments. They argue that DotA is just like Counter-strike, a mod. Hence, they argue on a point that has no validity on whether a game has potential to grow. DotA is in a completely different environment as Counter-Strike.

DotA Culture

A couple days after JMC sponsored Team Apex, I asked Jax if he has gotten a chance to play and he said “DotA players are mean.” From the game where people bait their teammates, fight for defusal kills, and refuse to carry the bomb; can DotA players really be considered mean? To be straight forward, DotA players are probably the biggest online asses of all the gaming realms.

I am willing to venture that we surpass loot ninjas, vehicle stealers, and baiters. The very nature of DotA locks players into a game, where a single action can have an outcome for the whole time; not a round, not until you spawn in 30 seconds, but the whole game. The adverse affect of bad new players really can spoil it for everyone; whether by feeding, pooling or leaving, this automatically ruins a game for nine other players.

Counter-strike and Battlefield 2142 are more based on the individual, as opposed to DotA. In a public game, one player cannot ruin the whole game. They may cause you to lose a round, but when the new round starts, the effects of your bad play sum up to a difference in income and a point for that round. You could die every round, without killing anyone and really have no impact in this public game at all, except to bolster someone’s self-proclaimed Counter-strike prowess. While in DotA, every death nets the opposing team gold and experience; what players are fighting for throughout the first 35-40 minutes of a game. This naturally forms a hatred for new players in their game and deters new players to join this game.

Sponsors

With the flood of sponsors from JMC, Pandemic and Complexity, even I believed that DotA would be growing exponentially. Yet in gaming history, we have never seen a flood of sponsors on a game still in it’s infancy for skill level and competitiveness. When sponsors such as Complexity and Pandemic started to get involved, a phenomenon which I call “skillnopolies” began to form.

A skillnopoly is when sponsored teams begin taking all the top-tier players. Naturally, the top-tier players are attracted to a team that has strong players and are sponsored. Skill monopolies do form in all E-Sports circles; what makes DotA’s so special? DotA has not truly been able to stabilize teams like Counter-strike did before sponsors. The natural boom and bust style of teams was cut short by sponsorships interference.

With a small player pool, this means that teams have not been given time to form proper synergies and to develop skills within the clan. When a team breaks up, each individual player brings their skills to the pool of a new clan. The more teams break apart and reform, skills such as leadership, teamwork and game knowledge are exchanged between players.

Currently, we see sponsored teams carrying not just five top-tier players, but monopolizing as many as seven top-tier players. What does this mean? This means there is a lack of competent competition at the highest level. CEVO evidently was unable to register enough people to play. Not enough teams have the confidence in their skill level to pay to play. JMC disbanding illustrates the lack of stabilization even with a sponsor. How much do sponsors pay attention to their team? Dolven was unaware of David "NeJiX" St Georges, Armin "SwissBeatZ" Pasic, Pat "imMIKEJONES" Z and Thomas "Jollyjoker" McDaniel needing to manner up. Pandemic have held what many people considered the top five ill-mannered players at once.