Why Dota Fans Don’t Like Riot Games

The ‘holy wars’ have always been a part of the history of the gaming industry: Xbox vs. PlayStation, Call of Duty vs. Battlefield, World of Tanks vs. War Thunder, FIFA vs. PES, etc. But perhaps the biggest “unending war” in the esports industry in general is between Dota and League of Legends. However, the similarity between the two games is not the main cause of this feud. A lot of players say they have no problem with League of Legends – but they don’t like Riot Games at all. So what’s the problem?

Old players have always hated Riot for a long time, because of what happened with DotA-Allstars.com. Launched in 2004 by Steve “Pendragon” Mescon, the website quickly gained popularity and became an online portal for DotA lovers. Players post tutorials, discuss DotA releases, and come up with ideas for new champions. It’s a place to socialize with the developers and other modders.

In 2008, Pendragon and one of the founders of DotA AllStars, Steve “Guinsoo” Feak, came to work for Riot Games. Not long after, Pendragon announced he was shutting down the website temporarily and storing all information. The website was closed for a week to “move data to a new server”, but it was never reopened. What’s left is Pendragon’s letter promised that he would bring the site back, then accused IceFrog of secretly working with S2 Games and urged people to play League of Legends. Instructions, game ideas and champions, and contact information for friends are all gone.

One player who lost access to his champion ideas later discovered Riot Games had taken his ideas to create Teemo and Rammus. Teemo looks like the original idea you created, a furry minifigure that shoots darts and becomes invisible when not moving. Other players also found similar ideas in the game, but the similarities were not very obvious.

3 years later, Pendragon also put the website back up, but he didn’t give any reason why it took so long. Moreover, the idea of ​​​​generals is lost. This makes old gamers hate Pendragon and Riot Games.

Guinsoo and Pendragon hinder Valve’s Dota 2 development. In 2010, Valve trademarked “Dota”. At that time, IceFrog worked for them and was developing a new game. Pendragon and Guinsoo didn’t like “the idea of ​​a company taking over the name that hundreds of people helped create”, They felt that DotA should forever be a community project. That’s why they registered “Defense of the Ancients” and gave it to Riot Games. After that, Riot franchise this name to Blizzard Entertainment, making it difficult to win Valve rights. After that, 2 companies also achieved general agreement; Valve retains the name, while Blizzard owns the original mods as well as the non-commercialized names.

Riot Games wants teams to abandon other MOBA games. In September 2012, Jeff “iNcontroL” Robinson of Evil Geniuses said Riot Games tried to force organizations to remove the lineup competing in games different if they want to attend Season 3 of League of Legends. This was then Endorsed by Scott “SirScooots” Smiththe chief executive officer of EG. Appeared on Live on Threeolder brother disclosure that Riot contacted its organization about the League of Legends roster – but to sign it, EG needed to disband the Dota team.

Smnith explained that Riot Games intended to include this rule before season 3, but then had to abandon it because of the backlash from team leaders and the community. Journalist Rod “Slasher” Breslau speak He also heard similar stories from other organizations. The intention to disband the lineup was also confirmed by a member of compLexity. Representative of Riot Games negate things, and call them “rumors”.

Riot negotiates exclusive rights at the tournament. In June 2012, James “2GD” Harding commented on the announcement of the League of Legends tournament at MLG Anaheim. He said then MLG Most likely won’t bring Dota 2 or Heroes of Newerth in. According to Harding, many organizations have agreed with Riot Games that they will not allow them to host other MOBA games if the event has a League, although he did not say exactly which company. In August, Team Liquid manager James “Kennigit” Lampkin confirm the existence of these contracts. A member of Riot’s esports board did not deny these allegations; on the contrary, you still suggest they are real.

In Fall 2012, Slasher has Interview with Gamespot with Dustin Beck, Riot’s vice president of esports. When asked about the issue of exclusivity, he did not deny it, saying that the company wants to see League of Legends “at the heart” at MLG, ESL and IPL events. Beck adds that “anyone can do” this with organizations.

2GD on Riot Games contracts:

According to GosuGamers, this is why the organizations of World Cyber ​​games chose League of Legends over Dota in 2013.

In 2014, the managing director of ESL affirmed there is no such clause in the contract. However, he did mention that Riot has invested in Intel Extreme Masters when it comes to business ethics and working together. He thinks it would be “not OK” to hold tournaments with ‘multiple games’ in the same event.

DreamHack is the only major organization that can combine League and Dota in the same event.

In general, there is nothing to fear, it is simply competition in the market. However, there is still no evidence from Valve about their directions, so this business tactic seems to be too bold. Having their favorite game removed from tournaments is another reason for players to hate Riot.

Riot criticized the TI system, then also imitated increasing prize money with money from fans. Although league of Legend is extremely profitable – the game has profit in 2015 than Dota, CS:GO and WoW (World of Warcraft) combined – LoL tournament prize money is much lower than Dota’s, that’s not counting The International. Fans helped DAC 2015 reach a total prize money of $3 million, one million more than the League of Legends World Championship in the same year. Then the regular seasons are also much less money.

Jason Yeh, esports director of Riot EU (Europe), said in the post Interview with Polygon that the company prefers to invest money in the in-game system rather than big bonuses. He added that fan contributions to the prize pool could backfire if Riot’s tournament was less money than last year. A Riot representative also said that the company has no intention of “begging money” from fans to increase bonuses.

However, crowdfunding was also included in League of Legends in 2016. Fans can purchase the Zed chapmion skin and a ward: 25% of that money will go towards the total prize pool of the world championship. It wasn’t as successful as Dota’s Battle Pass for The International, and players were only able to increase the prize pool to $3 million.

League of Legends developers love to say the things they hate about Dota. Bloodseeker’s Ultimate in DotA was considered bad at first because the way it worked was confusing for new players. Invoker is considered a bad champion because he spends a lot of time studying. Sometimes Riot employees Criticism is not clear.

Every time I get back into DOTA2 I’m this game was designed without everything we’ve learned about MOBA Design in the last 13 years

— Jon Stein (@JanookOnline) May 25, 2016

Every time I play DOTA2 again, I realize this game is designed without learning anything from MOBA Game Design over the past 13 years.

The idea of ​​“anti-fun” is teased by the Dota fan community a lot. It goes like this: if a player doesn’t let his opponent “play his favorite game” or do something they find interesting, that’s called “anti-fun”. Just like the powerful anti-mage doesn’t let the enemy play spells, it reduces the enjoyment of the game and makes it impossible for them to unleash their champion’s full potential. According to developer Riot, if the negative experience of the opponent outweighs the positive experience of the player, then the game has a problem. That’s why they always avoid certain ideas and systems.

Dota fans are often sarcastic or critical of such comments. For example, they believe that Riot Games has no right to teach anyone how to make games. Especially their project is also problematic.

Valve has so far not responded to Dota’s comments from Riot.

Source: Cybersport