this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
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Dota 2
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I'm happy Liquid won, I think the old HoN trio deserve it, I think Nisha really deserves it and 33 is of course a great player too. I'm glad the Liquid redemption story vs GG gave us at least one memorable story and moment from this TI, which otherwise has felt fairly bland.
I've touched on it before but TI losing its magic is very sad to me. It's been in decline for a few years already, but it's more obvious now than it ever has been that Valve's investment in Dota is just not what it once was. This was the first TI Valve was fully hands-off with - from now on its 100% a PGL product and I think it shows.
I miss True Sight, it's one of the best things related to TI. I miss seeing more of the games in front of a crowd (they even seemed to filter out the crowd noise?). I miss the Lategame with Pyrion Flax aftershow. I miss player profiles and video archive snippets (patience from Zhou!). I miss the All-Star games, despite them being goofy and sometimes terrible.
TI is just another LAN event now, and that's such a shame when you think about the heights of what it once was.
Valve doesn't organize majors anymore right? I'm not monitoring the Dota 2 news so Idk. I know Valve didn't do a pro circuit point system for 2024. Then they said they were still focused on The international. Why did they give the keys to PGL? It's already so :( that they don't do True sight anymore. Dota 2 probably isn't high on the list of their profit sources but I hope they'll still give it a moderate amount of care.
I think Valve is completely hands-off when it comes to pro Dota now. They single-handedly organised the first five Internationals, after which they slowly and gradually started offloading more and more responsibilities onto PGL. That's why it's been a slow process, TI6 for example (considered by many the best TI of all time) was still mostly a Valve event.
I don't think profitability is a major factor, to be honest. Valve gets enough money from Steam to do whatever they want, and they've demonstrated many times over that they're not primarily motivated by making money when it comes down to what projects they choose to undertake - or not undertake, for that matter.
I think they used to be really passionate about Dota, and that passion is just not there to the same extent anymore. Valve employees are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want, and over the years I assume the amount of people who want to be involved with Pro Dota has dwindled.
There still seem to be enough people around that still care about the game itself, at least. It's still getting updates and new content, so there's that.