PinoyGG

DotA may probably the most played Computer game in the Country this year, but what is the future of DotA? Here are my takes

• Ice frog was recently hired  by Valve to make his own game, gather his own team and him his own resources. That means there will be lesser time that he can spend on the game which is evidenced by the long time transition between 6.64 and 6.65. Thus, in the future there will be longer cycles between versions.
• DotA now has a lot of competitors in the market. Though it is the DotA that revolutionized the genre, there will always be games that will try to surpass the original. Unfortunately for DotA fans, S2 Games and Riot Games are making their own take on the genre, and they are making their games with dedicated development teams as compared to DotA’s one man job of Ice frog. It will only be a matter of time until the newer ones surpass DotA.
• People are buying newer Computers. One of the main reasons that DotA is very famous here in the Philippines is because it is an old game and can be handled by older computers. Internet shop owners in the country are unable to financially support the upgrade of their Computers to meet the current hardware demand of the newer games. As soon as the older shops close and the newer shops open with their more powerful PC’s, players and costumers of the newer shops will choose to play newer games.
• Players are getting old. DotA is all about elitism. There is a certain difficulty of new players to get into the game because of the sheer number of heroes, principles and the jologsness of the older players. Heck, when was the last time you taught a newb? You probably never taught anyone now have you? But instead you chose to flame them and tell them how stupid they are. Congratulations, you just contributed to the death of DotA. As soon as those good players move on in life and step away from gaming, the mainstream-ness of DotA will go with them and only an elite and chosen few will continue playing the game. Newer players will choose to play newer games, with better graphics and with the impending release of starcraft in the early parts of 2010, the DotA down fall is surely imminent.

The year2010 may be the year of the new DotA inspired games. We have S2’s Heroes of Newerth which I can safely say is the best one out there and LoL which is also not too far behind. After the latest Asian tournament in China; SMM, there was a realization as to how boring the DotA games can still be, as Asian teams sweeped the European and American teams with their ricing strategy. The newer games can probably fix this as their engine and their man power will allow them to. With Ice Frog going to valve and DotA inspired games going in full force, 2010 may be the beginning of the down slope of DotA. Though Filipino’s will continue to play the game for years to come, DotA will starte to wither and fade in the International scene and the current top teams will move to the newer DotA games. Let’s just pray the Starcraft 2 will allow a similar if not better DotA game to be made.

So, those are my takes and predictions for DotA in 2010 and onwards. My predictions may not necessarily come true. What are yours?

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