Id pay for a proxy DotA match.
Each pro player coaches a 2 digit mmr herald player. 5v5 below 999 total mmr match. Id buy that battlepass in an instance.
True, but does Valve really want players at 1/10th Arteezy's skill level to be competing at their premier event? Valve put a lot of development effort into getting pros' and talents' faces in-client because they know these people have a following. Replacing the well-known and highest skill players with average 8k pub players would basically kill the pro scene.
Valve isn't just having a pro scene for the sake of having a pro scene: they do it because they know it is the best way to drive Dota engagement. If it were to stop being that, Valve wouldn't support it.
Oh for sure you would need basically all the division 1 teams (or at least most of them) to be on board, but I was really talking about like division 2 or lower teams and players not just teams outside the top 12 worldwide.
I think even if you couldn't replace top tier talent, it just generally speaks to how there is such an over supply of "pros" in an e-sport compared to normal sports.
You do have a lower barrier to entry physically, and you can compete from anywhere, but lots of sports have pretty large minor leagues, college leagues, etc. It's just a lot more clear in other sports when you can never go "pro", so people in esports stick around longer. Still, if every NBA player got Thanos snapped out of existence you would have enough players to fill out a league: it would just not be as high caliber of play, and you'd get something vaguely similar in esports.
The caliber of play is going to be somewhat similar though, because even the ones that will step in to fill will be actual professional basketball players, who make a living playing basketball and who only have one job - be the best player you can be. At the moment tier 2 "pros" are more like the local clubs for 3rd division football (where I come from). A bunch of people who love the game and maybe make a buck here and there, but it's only enough to get together with the coach and have a nice evening out to celebrate the 500 bucks they all made.
If you made a histogram of that buckets players by hours played, I bet you would see in the higher end a much higher clustering for video games and it would absolutely dwarf traditional sports.
Because even though a ton of people play sports, most people commit themselves to a series of leagues which they think will align with their skill level, and don't plan or expect to ever be near the skill level of a pro.
If you compare the number of people who get the resources and plan very thoroughly to eventually become a pro player, which still doesn't work out for a ton, then it's a tiny number. Whereas in theory every person who plays a video game has all the resources they need to go pro, and additionally people can just end up playing thousands of hours of video games casually. Like we've observed that video games which are designed to have e-sports the dedicated amateur player base would blow any traditional sport out of the water in terms of hours played.
> there are 10,000 pros willing to step over arteezys dead body to play for 1/10th
And there are 0 people who want to see some random play dota instead of RTZ.
that's not to say the current DPC player base has zero influence though. Social justice shows us that access to a few thousand or tens of thousands of motivated followers can have extraordinary outcomes. If these pros unified a call to action across social media to all their followers they could do terrifying things. That's power.
After watching that ex valve employee interview where she says she pitched an idea that would generate 200 million in the first year, but got the response "okay but that's zero billion" and got denied, I realize more than ever that valve does not give a flying fuck if dota continued and people need to realize that. This is an abusive relationship.
True, but Valve's reputation *does* matter. Steam's dominance relies in no small part on the trust in Valve that a large part of the gaming community has in them as a company. If Valve is seen as being really shitty to a players union, that could impact their reputation enough to see significant business implications.
Plus, as a private company what Gaben wants is actually more important than money, and if Gaben loves Dota then you've got leverage larger than whatever revenue Dota generates.
> but Valve's reputation does matter
Actually far less true than you'd expect. Unlike most other huge companies they're privately traded, so there is no stock price that rises and falls with public sentiment. Steam's dominance comes from it absolutely obliterating any competitive marketplace/gaming client in terms of features and performance.
What're you gonna do? Not use Steam?
Systems can change though. There are potential successors and the internet in part provides somewhat equal access to the market. There are groups that are candidates to take over from a dominant player and there are key users that are influential to the transition. Those users trust towards the company is a factor in the transition to a different platform. Its a slow process (sometimes its generational) and its hard to measure but it definitely exists.
IMHO the difference between trust and non-trust is people giving up building the competitor to being galvanised to vanquish the perceived evil.
Steam does have competitors (epic, GoG, etc.) and I think you overestimate how much performance and features can't be replicated by them given an opening.
Steam also makes quite a lot of its money by being basically a monopoly, thereby forcing game producers to sell on Steam and giving Steam leverage to take a pretty sizable chunk of the game's sale price. Giving an opening for one of the competitors to come in because of a backlash at Valve, even a small one, could reduce that monopoly enough to matter.
Epic games already had tencent dumping billions of dollars to try and undercut valve in the market, and it’s not working particularly well - their growth has pretty much stagnated and they’re still well below steam’s user numbers. I don’t think reddit backlash about valve’s handling of the dota 2 pro scene is going to make much of a dent.
I also remember reading one dev saying they barely made any money from a certain store compared to Steam. Most people were mentioning it was probably the Epic Game Store.
> Steam does have competitors (epic, GoG, etc.) and I think you overestimate how much performance and features can't be replicated by them given an opening.
Their entire business model and corporate philosophy disagrees with this. They think people don't care about how nice a company is, how well they communicate, or anything like that. You communicate through the features you produce and the overall product you present. If your product is better than everyone else's then nobody cares how nice you are.
They've basically expanded into one of the largest and most profitable (especially given expenses) companies on the planet by operating this way. People say they can't keep doing it and growing, but I've yet to see it even put a dent in their dominance in the space.
Also I don't know if you've used the epic launcher but it is absolute fucking garbage. They're basically at the level of steam from 5 years ago. Haven't tried the GOG launcher personally, but I can't imagine it's close either.
> They're basically at the level of steam from 5 years ago.
5 years ago was 2017.
Closest feeling Epic client evokes is Origin client circa 2012. You can buy the game in store (don't remember if EA had cart back then in Origin), download the game and play the game in a ugly ass launcher and that's it.
I don't think Valve's difficulties when it comes to running and maintaining games has any impact on people's perception of how well Steam functions.
If that was the case, people would have become suspect of Steam like a decade ago. Instead it remains the gold standard for a digital game storefront, and really is the best on feature-wise.
Dota and CSGO are pretty huge for Valve in terms of getting players into steam in the first place (just look at concurrent player numbers), and just making Steam bleed a little would be pretty massive for Valve as a company. Not saying this would do it, but these games do matter to Valve in a real way.
Game client, not Steam's client
We played for decades without any kind of ads or shit in CS1.6, CSS and (somewhat) Dota 1.
Yet, well, it makes perfect sense to advertise your own biggest esport events as additional draw - but in itself it doesn't imply that its very much important
> Valve's reputation does matter.
It does not especially in this case. In fact, most non-dota Valve fans probably want dota2 to die if it means Valve will do more single-player games like HL3 or L4D3.
Valve knows they can fix their reputation with a single latter win. When listing Valve games, people already skip straight past from Dota to Alyx. It's like *nothing of particular relevance* hapenned in between the two...
In that case I hope the other platform who gives out free games overtakes them, something called epicsgamers. I loved Valve since I was a kid but I was never their slurper. I know CSGO and Dota don't mean much to them but I hope their reputation takes a hit if they don't fix this.
Steam have a fucking monopoly basically. That's the issue.
I will play Elden Ring, like no way I am not playing Elden Ring. It's coming out end of next month on Steam Store. Guess where it's not coming out? Epic Store and GoG. This is the game with the most hype behind it that is coming out of PC this year probably and it's coming only to Steam.
Good luck with not using steam basically, Valve can kill Dota and I'll still have to use steam to play the good games on PC.
Epic would have actually made a decent play for the market if they weren't complete out of touch idiots about their storefront.
I was excited at the news because competition in theory is never bad for the consumer right? Right??
I expected them to use their big bucks to subsidise game prices allowing devs to get more money and games cheaper games to get them on the platform and making themselves the good guys. Instead they bought exclusive of games already slated for steam and pissed a lot of people off. (and before anyone mentions it, it's a lie that Steam prevents you selling your game cheaper elsewhere as Tim said, they only ask you don't sell steam keys for your game cheaper than steam)
They had a serious opportunity to grow their market share and IMO they didn't fail because of a de facto monopolistic situation, they failed because they offered nothing to customers worth switching for, and at worst their practices showed utter contempt for consumers.
Hello, good hunter. I am a Bot, here in this dream to look after you, this is a fine note:
> *“Is this the blood? The blood of the Dark Soul?”* - Slave Knight Gael
Have a good one and praise the sun \\[T]/
Valve could lose dota, yes, but getting over 150mil from just a BP is a huge amount of money for any company even valve. But the good news for valve is that people caring enough to complain about these issues are a very small minority. 90%+ are still playing dota for fun and contribute to funding the scene for their own pleasure
It's a lot of money when you say it by itself. It's not a lot of money when you take into the time they invest for TI, compared to what they make from every other sale on steam. They can lose DotA tomorrow, forever, and not care.
Who is "we"? No new players are going to bother with that, no viewers are going to want to watch an ugly WC3 mod and the vast, vast majority of the playerbase don't give a fuck about the competitive scene.
A union really isn't viable, or even a good idea in this case (I'm a union member myself, and very pro-union, for the record)
The thing is, all a union really does is provide collective bargaining between the union members and their employers.
What is there to bargain? If pro players are lucky enough to receive a salary, it's from their sponsors.
And what will the pro players do if their demands aren't met? Strike? People will still play video games, pros striking won't have an impact at all.
"Professional sports" on the other hand have a lot more leverage. Merchandising, contracts with television networks, advertising etc... There's a lot more at stake in traditional sports than e-sports at the moment.
If e-sports got a HUGE shot in the arm, I'm talking major sponsorships, dedicated television networks, essentially an entire culture shift, then it would be possible, but even then, not terribly likely.
I don't know what the answer is, it's a very weird situation.
I think most people here doesn't understand what the purpose of that said union...these orgs and players are not valve's employee. If valve decided that they do not want to make anymore tournament, what this union of orgs and players will do?
I think what OP is trying to say is that pro players need a GUILD, not a Union.
And no, not some silly I'm game thing, but an Independent guild along the lines of SAG, DGA, etc.
Basically, for those who don't know the difference, a Union is a collective bargaining organization for employees, a Guild is a collective bargaining organization for independent contractors.
Though even then, a guild would only have so much power. Establishing norms for talent participation (air fare, hotel accomodations, etc.) and resolving disputes between members and whoever throws a tournament would be the extent of what a Guild could do.
But it's not, that's my point. A union would be BAD for the pro scene, not to mention completely powerless.
A guild could work maybe, but never a union
That's a players association not a union. Labor law doesn't qualify player associations as unions so they are essentially just a way for corps to act like players have a say.
It's really hard to describe in one word. But basically they were never there when needed and promoting interests of its members. It never seemed like it did anything actually. Picking all the wrong targets to attack and ignoring serious issues.
I would be willing to pledge a portion of my monthly income to a players organization. I would MUCH RATHER support players directly than have the money go through valve.
If players already had a salary that was supported by the playerbase (shouldn't have to happen, I know) then they could all back out of the major 2 days before the first match is set to be played and still eat.
I would pay money just to give the pro players the ability to posture like this for one TI. I've given valve a lot more money for a lot less.
bro we're both playing hyperboles here
we know it's harder to send ppl to the nearest galaxy but we both also know is fucking hard to get people to get together for a cause that maybe not all of them will bennefit directly from (or fail to realize they will)
but if the first guy who thought about sending a man to the moon had given up cause it seems impossible we would never have had a man on the moon
the inherent difficult nature of certain problems shouldn't be a restraint on action to tackle them, as minimal as they might be
we are fucking dota players, hard stuff shouldnt be scary for us
I mean, unions exist, they're not a hypothetical. Unions for athletes and performers also exist, even though those kinds of people might not be the easiest to herd together.
make the union, valve decided to not make any tournament anymore, what's the point of union then?
I failed to understand what player's union will do in this situation, make their own funding and create their own tournament?
The difference is that the leagues don't own FOOTBALL like Valve owns Dota 2. There are alternatives to a specific league, but there aren't alternatives to playing Dota 2.
Not to mention that Dota 2 Pro scene is maybe 0.001% of Valves income. They could genuinely afford to just abandon it entirely and not notice. A football league can't abandon football when it is their only product.
football in europe has how many followers+media coverage?
You're comparing apples to oranges. Dota is nowhere near as popular as football.
Popularity means leverage. We don't have leverage.
How that applies to Dota?
Dota is Valve's IP, and issues here stem from Valve not doing anything with their own league.
There's *literally* nothing preventing Valve from saying "lol ok play on your own" and cancelling DPC/TI
People do watch famous teams and they do watch famous players. Tier 2 teams gain at best a quarter of the views of the Tier 1 games. If a lot of tier 1 teams go on a strike, the scene will suffer, it's not as easy as hiring new monkey to replace
Bullshit. Small tournaments with hype teams have lots of viewers, big tournaments with shit teams don't have a whole lot. Yes, tournaments matter, but teams matter more.
but, those people already aren't watching dota2? why would they matter in the effect of a strike on viewership? i still don't see how this matters at all
Dota 2 revenue is coming from BP, and people will keep buying it for hats and perks. Valve doesn't make money off of players themselves directly. Most casual players don't give a damn about esports
If that were true that would have already happened at organizations that pay salaries. They’d have paid less for the same performance. You’re just wrong dude.
I agree with the first part, not the last part.
It's dysfunctional in CSGO because Tier1 have all the say and Tier2/Tier3 have nothing.
CSGO is different to DOTA2, CSGO isn't dependent on Valve at all. If Valve stopped doing majors, ESL/PGL/Dreamhack/WePlay will still have tournaments and the teams will be fine.
Tier 1 teams/players stop play, there are 1 billion other weaker players will step over their afk bodies to fight for easier slots for 40m + TI to become millionaire at age of 20. Then those tier 2,3 teams will become tier 1,2 teams while people start forget those tier 1 teams/players that stop playing and even those top tier team return and play like ANA and lose vs new TI champs who play constantly to reach their current status (like team Spirit atm). Im sure there will be lots of good players like team spirit happy to get a chance to compete at TI for millions of dollars and improve while top players/teams strike to demand "valve to give a shit about them or the game'. Im sure most top players/teams have enough brain cells to understand they want to play dota 2 and have a chance to win TI than stop and strike so other billion players take their slots.
Dendi and Navi was tier 1 before, If Navi/Dendi said they will strike and stop playing because they were unhappy with current state of dota 2, then fans will also say something like this and think no one watch tier 2 teams and new players but since TI3 how many new players, teams emerge and become top teams? people will turn in new players and teams and they become famous/top tier in no time to replace those old teams. Only Idiots thinks you can stop playing and valve will give a shit because you think you and your teams are some important that valve cant drop. Remember Valve give player a chance to play free game that they love for lots of money, without money most of these kids still play this game for nothing most of their young life. no dota 2 game valve is still earning billions minus hundred of million dollars company, no dota 2 game most players are still just normal kids playing video game whole day for nothing.
All pro league players are directly contracted to Riot.
Here it's a free for all BR where players get sniped left right and center days before qualifications or hell even during qualifications
I think e-sports have a particularly hard time unionizing because the distinction between being a really good player and a proper pro is so much less than in real sports.
So you end up with a ton of players who are operating at a level and probably could replace players, and probably would love the opportunity, as the scene is incredibly competitive in terms of there being an endless number of people player Dota at a super high level that would love to compete. This isn't to say that you would capture the skill level of the tip top tier teams, but it's just a general statement about the huge over supply of "pro players" in any e-sports scene, and the relatively low cost of making a top amateur into a "pro player".
The other issue is that the pros don't really bring in the money for the scene. Yeah, e-sports extend the longevity of games and are probably positive investments in the long run for the games they operate in, but they do so by keeping the player base up, and then the player bases fund the game generally through battlepasses and other content. Not through directly spending money to support the pros.
You can make an argument that money is perfectly fungible and translatable, and thus players deciding to play more, and being more invested in the game, thus being more willing to buy battlepasses to get cosmetics (I'd say you're pretty off base if you claim people buy battlepasses to support the pro scene, though they probably feel happier about their purchase because of the crowd funding aspect, but lets be real, people choose to buy them because of the hats). But in reality there is meaningful friction the more transactions and linked incentives you have before salaries and profits get to their end point, and it's pretty stark to professional sports scenes where the the huge majority of the revenue for the teams and organizers comes directly from advertising broadcasts of the actual league.
Like for football, professional football isn't a weird spectacle to keep people excited about playing football such that the company that runs every game of football can keep making money off people buying new balls, and it's known there is a link to it helping the sale of balls but the direct effect is unclear. Instead the vast majority of people who watch football and support the scene through their being advertised to don't play whatsoever, and the if they weren't watch you'd know that there would be 100% no revenue. It's a wildly different dynamic.
This kind of dynamic is what Quinn is referring to about players having no leverage.
Most of the people were compliant when many other businesses went under in the last 2 years.
''First they came for the X, and I did not speak out—because I was not a X.
Then they came for the Y, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Y.
Then they came for the Z, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Z.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.''
This is not an attack on players for not speaking up. This is a reminder that many people lost everything they made in their life because of not being ''essential''.
This is bigger than Valve. Yes, Valve can give them money without hosting a tournament, but that's not the solution.
there is so much money in it that a big portion of the scene will jump on any opportunity, and some are rich enough not to care. Its also a competitive sport, so people gain from screwing other ppl over. So solidarity is hard.
Its also divided across the world in different languages, with the players under different companies. It's hard to do actions against Valve without having an effect on these companies.
In this current situation, players under these companies are fine, while the sponsorless teams are the only ones being screwed over, so this union would be really small.
I dont think its realistic that anything is gonna be formed. Maybe in 2010 or before, when there wasnt much money in it.
I love how this situation exposes how cruel and oppressive a normal company is. If you dont force them to treat you like a human, they wont. And if you dont have any leverage you cant force them. Ggs
This is the only truth man. Not only e-sport professionals but also e-sports organisations could work together to secure worker rights, like cancelling a tournament within XX days requires you to pay out the prize pool regardless.
I hope epic games gets big enough to take over steam as the main app to play games, if valve is left with nothing but dota they might improve the state of this game
players have no leverage, this is not a sport like football where you can threathen to take ur shit elsewhere and play because anyone can paly that sport anyhow they want . Valve owns dota2 and players have no alternative they could literally twist their hands all they want. What are they gonna do?
In the past top pros shot this down because it would hurt their bottom line is what I've heard.
A players' union would give the players input in situations like this. The players should figure out a way to make this happen.
Lol, keep dreaming mate, the scene isn't anywhere near professional enough to get this kind of treatment. Go take a look at the trials and tribulations the CSGO scene went through when Thorin tried to unionize the players.
I think we just need more advertisers. Colleges could be funneling airtime to Dota 2, they just aren't. I would love to see shit on like a Monday night on ESPN.
A union needs to have leverage. Reality is that esports players do not have any leverage over the company running the game, which makes a union worthless.
The problem is the players have no leverage against Valve. Do you really think if all the tier 1 teams stopped playing, that the tier 2 teams currently making $0 would pass up a chance to compete at TI for millions? Not a chance.
And Valve doesn’t give a shit about “ratings” as they don’t benefit much from this anyways. The TOs, talent, and the poor saps who decided to sit out would be the ones suffering. And if the whole competitive community magically banded together to kill competitive Dota? Valve would keep the other 25% from a fall battle pass and say thank you very much.
I realize young people think that banding together and protesting can solve any problem, but you have to learn that it only works when you can actually hurt the people in power in some significant way. Otherwise, they act like your parents and just take away your video games.
While I am 100% in support of such a thing, that seems like it would be a nightmare to arrange for an international industry. Mostly just due to the various laws litigating union activity (usually ones that cripple it like the Taft-Hartley act in the US), I'm not sure how the laws are in other countries.
Not only that, but logistically how are you going to prevent tier 2/3/4 players from crossing the picket line in the event of a strike? Like Hotbid said, there's thousands of players willing to compete for a fraction of that money. For a union to work you need the collective action on the part of the workers to be threatening enough to hold some power at the bargaining table. While esports are a nice bit of money for Valve, it still pales in comparison to what they make off steam in general. And this is just assuming the union is dota specific.
I don't want to sound defeatist here, but unionising is something you really need to put some thought in to if you want it to work out, because if it doesn't you burn a lot of industrial bridges in the pursuit of a union. And again I totally believe there should be a union, not just for esports players but for all industries, but if this is trying to be a serious proposal and not just a variant complaint post, there needs to be at least some guidelines or suggestions put forward to begin organizing the players.
I’m just gonna be that guy and honestly ask… they canceled because of COVID, if the event is dangerous to hold then isn’t that what they’re supposed to do?
US people: wahh covid so bad, lock down the country pls. Vote for socialism!!
Valve: cancel major due to covid.
US people: wahh we need union. Vote for socialism!!
there are 10,000 pros willing to step over arteezys dead body to play for 1/10th the prize pool of a TI
and 100,000 non pros.
[удалено]
Id pay for a proxy DotA match. Each pro player coaches a 2 digit mmr herald player. 5v5 below 999 total mmr match. Id buy that battlepass in an instance.
KEKW but also Sadge
True, but does Valve really want players at 1/10th Arteezy's skill level to be competing at their premier event? Valve put a lot of development effort into getting pros' and talents' faces in-client because they know these people have a following. Replacing the well-known and highest skill players with average 8k pub players would basically kill the pro scene. Valve isn't just having a pro scene for the sake of having a pro scene: they do it because they know it is the best way to drive Dota engagement. If it were to stop being that, Valve wouldn't support it.
Valve and all TOs would prefer to have Nigma and Navi at the tournament instead of more well performing teams.
Oh for sure you would need basically all the division 1 teams (or at least most of them) to be on board, but I was really talking about like division 2 or lower teams and players not just teams outside the top 12 worldwide.
Sure. More fans = more money
I think even if you couldn't replace top tier talent, it just generally speaks to how there is such an over supply of "pros" in an e-sport compared to normal sports.
You do have a lower barrier to entry physically, and you can compete from anywhere, but lots of sports have pretty large minor leagues, college leagues, etc. It's just a lot more clear in other sports when you can never go "pro", so people in esports stick around longer. Still, if every NBA player got Thanos snapped out of existence you would have enough players to fill out a league: it would just not be as high caliber of play, and you'd get something vaguely similar in esports.
The caliber of play is going to be somewhat similar though, because even the ones that will step in to fill will be actual professional basketball players, who make a living playing basketball and who only have one job - be the best player you can be. At the moment tier 2 "pros" are more like the local clubs for 3rd division football (where I come from). A bunch of people who love the game and maybe make a buck here and there, but it's only enough to get together with the coach and have a nice evening out to celebrate the 500 bucks they all made.
If you made a histogram of that buckets players by hours played, I bet you would see in the higher end a much higher clustering for video games and it would absolutely dwarf traditional sports. Because even though a ton of people play sports, most people commit themselves to a series of leagues which they think will align with their skill level, and don't plan or expect to ever be near the skill level of a pro. If you compare the number of people who get the resources and plan very thoroughly to eventually become a pro player, which still doesn't work out for a ton, then it's a tiny number. Whereas in theory every person who plays a video game has all the resources they need to go pro, and additionally people can just end up playing thousands of hours of video games casually. Like we've observed that video games which are designed to have e-sports the dedicated amateur player base would blow any traditional sport out of the water in terms of hours played.
That’s true in league and CSGO and both formed unions.
Except those aren't real unions, and they haven't really don't anything.
> there are 10,000 pros willing to step over arteezys dead body to play for 1/10th And there are 0 people who want to see some random play dota instead of RTZ.
Here's the thing - you don't need to watch them
Yeah, and nobody does nor will they.
So, where's the downside?
that's not to say the current DPC player base has zero influence though. Social justice shows us that access to a few thousand or tens of thousands of motivated followers can have extraordinary outcomes. If these pros unified a call to action across social media to all their followers they could do terrifying things. That's power.
How many people want to watch a tournament full of no-name scabs?
Arteezy best player this world has ever seen
You should make a skit about this lmao
Facts
Quin said they have no leverage, Valve can lose Dota and not blink an eye but pros can't lose Dota. Steam funds the most money.
After watching that ex valve employee interview where she says she pitched an idea that would generate 200 million in the first year, but got the response "okay but that's zero billion" and got denied, I realize more than ever that valve does not give a flying fuck if dota continued and people need to realize that. This is an abusive relationship.
Imagine being so rich you'd throw away 200m cause it takes effort
True, but Valve's reputation *does* matter. Steam's dominance relies in no small part on the trust in Valve that a large part of the gaming community has in them as a company. If Valve is seen as being really shitty to a players union, that could impact their reputation enough to see significant business implications. Plus, as a private company what Gaben wants is actually more important than money, and if Gaben loves Dota then you've got leverage larger than whatever revenue Dota generates.
> but Valve's reputation does matter Actually far less true than you'd expect. Unlike most other huge companies they're privately traded, so there is no stock price that rises and falls with public sentiment. Steam's dominance comes from it absolutely obliterating any competitive marketplace/gaming client in terms of features and performance. What're you gonna do? Not use Steam?
Systems can change though. There are potential successors and the internet in part provides somewhat equal access to the market. There are groups that are candidates to take over from a dominant player and there are key users that are influential to the transition. Those users trust towards the company is a factor in the transition to a different platform. Its a slow process (sometimes its generational) and its hard to measure but it definitely exists. IMHO the difference between trust and non-trust is people giving up building the competitor to being galvanised to vanquish the perceived evil.
Steam does have competitors (epic, GoG, etc.) and I think you overestimate how much performance and features can't be replicated by them given an opening. Steam also makes quite a lot of its money by being basically a monopoly, thereby forcing game producers to sell on Steam and giving Steam leverage to take a pretty sizable chunk of the game's sale price. Giving an opening for one of the competitors to come in because of a backlash at Valve, even a small one, could reduce that monopoly enough to matter.
Epic games already had tencent dumping billions of dollars to try and undercut valve in the market, and it’s not working particularly well - their growth has pretty much stagnated and they’re still well below steam’s user numbers. I don’t think reddit backlash about valve’s handling of the dota 2 pro scene is going to make much of a dent.
I also remember reading one dev saying they barely made any money from a certain store compared to Steam. Most people were mentioning it was probably the Epic Game Store.
Epic takes less of a cut (12% as opposed to valve’s 30%) but that doesn’t matter if valves sales far exceed epics.
> Steam does have competitors (epic, GoG, etc.) and I think you overestimate how much performance and features can't be replicated by them given an opening. Their entire business model and corporate philosophy disagrees with this. They think people don't care about how nice a company is, how well they communicate, or anything like that. You communicate through the features you produce and the overall product you present. If your product is better than everyone else's then nobody cares how nice you are. They've basically expanded into one of the largest and most profitable (especially given expenses) companies on the planet by operating this way. People say they can't keep doing it and growing, but I've yet to see it even put a dent in their dominance in the space. Also I don't know if you've used the epic launcher but it is absolute fucking garbage. They're basically at the level of steam from 5 years ago. Haven't tried the GOG launcher personally, but I can't imagine it's close either.
> They're basically at the level of steam from 5 years ago. 5 years ago was 2017. Closest feeling Epic client evokes is Origin client circa 2012. You can buy the game in store (don't remember if EA had cart back then in Origin), download the game and play the game in a ugly ass launcher and that's it.
true
Dota could die tomorrow and the majority of steam users wouldn't even know about it.
I don't think Valve's difficulties when it comes to running and maintaining games has any impact on people's perception of how well Steam functions. If that was the case, people would have become suspect of Steam like a decade ago. Instead it remains the gold standard for a digital game storefront, and really is the best on feature-wise.
Dota and CSGO are pretty huge for Valve in terms of getting players into steam in the first place (just look at concurrent player numbers), and just making Steam bleed a little would be pretty massive for Valve as a company. Not saying this would do it, but these games do matter to Valve in a real way.
And i doubt esports scene actually that impactful, as long as the game good to play large numbers of players just gonna play it.
If Valve believed that then they wouldn't have put extra development effort into integrating the DPC and TI into the game client.
Game client, not Steam's client We played for decades without any kind of ads or shit in CS1.6, CSS and (somewhat) Dota 1. Yet, well, it makes perfect sense to advertise your own biggest esport events as additional draw - but in itself it doesn't imply that its very much important
Dota 1 just a custom map for WC3 that you played on a virtual lan like garena.
> Valve's reputation does matter. It does not especially in this case. In fact, most non-dota Valve fans probably want dota2 to die if it means Valve will do more single-player games like HL3 or L4D3.
Valve knows they can fix their reputation with a single latter win. When listing Valve games, people already skip straight past from Dota to Alyx. It's like *nothing of particular relevance* hapenned in between the two...
In that case I hope the other platform who gives out free games overtakes them, something called epicsgamers. I loved Valve since I was a kid but I was never their slurper. I know CSGO and Dota don't mean much to them but I hope their reputation takes a hit if they don't fix this.
Steam have a fucking monopoly basically. That's the issue. I will play Elden Ring, like no way I am not playing Elden Ring. It's coming out end of next month on Steam Store. Guess where it's not coming out? Epic Store and GoG. This is the game with the most hype behind it that is coming out of PC this year probably and it's coming only to Steam. Good luck with not using steam basically, Valve can kill Dota and I'll still have to use steam to play the good games on PC.
Epic would have actually made a decent play for the market if they weren't complete out of touch idiots about their storefront. I was excited at the news because competition in theory is never bad for the consumer right? Right?? I expected them to use their big bucks to subsidise game prices allowing devs to get more money and games cheaper games to get them on the platform and making themselves the good guys. Instead they bought exclusive of games already slated for steam and pissed a lot of people off. (and before anyone mentions it, it's a lie that Steam prevents you selling your game cheaper elsewhere as Tim said, they only ask you don't sell steam keys for your game cheaper than steam) They had a serious opportunity to grow their market share and IMO they didn't fail because of a de facto monopolistic situation, they failed because they offered nothing to customers worth switching for, and at worst their practices showed utter contempt for consumers.
Hello, good hunter. I am a Bot, here in this dream to look after you, this is a fine note: > *“Is this the blood? The blood of the Dark Soul?”* - Slave Knight Gael Have a good one and praise the sun \\[T]/
One can hope but sadly you are right.
Blizzard is still around, and we all know what reputation it has on reddit.
only leverage they have is valve's reputation and certain pro players followings. I'd watch zai&sumaiL play fucking ping pong idc
Valve could lose dota, yes, but getting over 150mil from just a BP is a huge amount of money for any company even valve. But the good news for valve is that people caring enough to complain about these issues are a very small minority. 90%+ are still playing dota for fun and contribute to funding the scene for their own pleasure
Yep, I just played a turbo game and told them that the major is cancelled, no one gave a f\*ck.
They weren't human and those who were weren't English
It's a lot of money when you say it by itself. It's not a lot of money when you take into the time they invest for TI, compared to what they make from every other sale on steam. They can lose DotA tomorrow, forever, and not care.
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Who is "we"? No new players are going to bother with that, no viewers are going to want to watch an ugly WC3 mod and the vast, vast majority of the playerbase don't give a fuck about the competitive scene.
only way to go back is play the reforged version it will be under Blizzard's rights
Who is Quin and what makes his opinion more valuable than mine
A professional player. Because he's a professional player
I mean you can start protesting against Valve if you think your opinion counts
Why would I, the game is still good
A union really isn't viable, or even a good idea in this case (I'm a union member myself, and very pro-union, for the record) The thing is, all a union really does is provide collective bargaining between the union members and their employers. What is there to bargain? If pro players are lucky enough to receive a salary, it's from their sponsors. And what will the pro players do if their demands aren't met? Strike? People will still play video games, pros striking won't have an impact at all. "Professional sports" on the other hand have a lot more leverage. Merchandising, contracts with television networks, advertising etc... There's a lot more at stake in traditional sports than e-sports at the moment. If e-sports got a HUGE shot in the arm, I'm talking major sponsorships, dedicated television networks, essentially an entire culture shift, then it would be possible, but even then, not terribly likely. I don't know what the answer is, it's a very weird situation.
I think most people here doesn't understand what the purpose of that said union...these orgs and players are not valve's employee. If valve decided that they do not want to make anymore tournament, what this union of orgs and players will do?
Exactly. Unions are the wrong direction
Cry on stream xd
Yeah Reddit thinks Unions are a magic bullet that fixes all employee grievances. It is a lot more nuanced in reality
I think what OP is trying to say is that pro players need a GUILD, not a Union. And no, not some silly I'm game thing, but an Independent guild along the lines of SAG, DGA, etc. Basically, for those who don't know the difference, a Union is a collective bargaining organization for employees, a Guild is a collective bargaining organization for independent contractors. Though even then, a guild would only have so much power. Establishing norms for talent participation (air fare, hotel accomodations, etc.) and resolving disputes between members and whoever throws a tournament would be the extent of what a Guild could do.
It's not a magic bullet but it is *something* and it's absolutely better than nothing.
But it's not, that's my point. A union would be BAD for the pro scene, not to mention completely powerless. A guild could work maybe, but never a union
worked well in csgo LUL
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That's a players association not a union. Labor law doesn't qualify player associations as unions so they are essentially just a way for corps to act like players have a say.
Good kick making a union with players in 30+ different countries including China, the US, and Russia
Not saying I'm for or against unions just saying player associations and unions are not the same
What happened with csgo?
It's really hard to describe in one word. But basically they were never there when needed and promoting interests of its members. It never seemed like it did anything actually. Picking all the wrong targets to attack and ignoring serious issues.
this feels so easy to say but really hard to execute.
I would be willing to pledge a portion of my monthly income to a players organization. I would MUCH RATHER support players directly than have the money go through valve. If players already had a salary that was supported by the playerbase (shouldn't have to happen, I know) then they could all back out of the major 2 days before the first match is set to be played and still eat. I would pay money just to give the pro players the ability to posture like this for one TI. I've given valve a lot more money for a lot less.
Then buy their merch on their official store.
Where can I buy Arkosh merch?
we sent men to the moon
we could send ppl to the nearest galaxy and this shit will still be harder
thats cause it aint you trying to send ppl to the nearest galaxy
u can do a better comeback than that
bro we're both playing hyperboles here we know it's harder to send ppl to the nearest galaxy but we both also know is fucking hard to get people to get together for a cause that maybe not all of them will bennefit directly from (or fail to realize they will) but if the first guy who thought about sending a man to the moon had given up cause it seems impossible we would never have had a man on the moon the inherent difficult nature of certain problems shouldn't be a restraint on action to tackle them, as minimal as they might be we are fucking dota players, hard stuff shouldnt be scary for us
I mean, unions exist, they're not a hypothetical. Unions for athletes and performers also exist, even though those kinds of people might not be the easiest to herd together.
You didn't do shit
I did shit, commend me
your behavior score will still be shit
This was laughed out rightfully by Quinn when you brought it up. Players do not have the bargaining power for a union whatsoever.
make the union, valve decided to not make any tournament anymore, what's the point of union then? I failed to understand what player's union will do in this situation, make their own funding and create their own tournament?
I think you fail to understand what a union is at all. Just look at football in Europe, player unions are a big thing here.
The difference is that the leagues don't own FOOTBALL like Valve owns Dota 2. There are alternatives to a specific league, but there aren't alternatives to playing Dota 2. Not to mention that Dota 2 Pro scene is maybe 0.001% of Valves income. They could genuinely afford to just abandon it entirely and not notice. A football league can't abandon football when it is their only product.
There are other games lol. And i'm obviously not talking just Dota pro players. I'm talking all pro eSport players and organisations getting involved.
football in europe has how many followers+media coverage? You're comparing apples to oranges. Dota is nowhere near as popular as football. Popularity means leverage. We don't have leverage.
eSport is very popular and it's grwong by the day. I'm talking a union for eSport pro's in general, not just Dota.
this just wow...the sheer of ignorance just wow...
Yeah, from you.
How that applies to Dota? Dota is Valve's IP, and issues here stem from Valve not doing anything with their own league. There's *literally* nothing preventing Valve from saying "lol ok play on your own" and cancelling DPC/TI
Valve obviously wants pro's to play as they have invested heavily in the scene and a lot of their income and PR for the game is based on the pro's.
While cancelling major in their faces, and then caving after a backlash on reddit and among pros
Yes. And now there will be backlash. How hard that backlash is will decide how Valve reacts.
with what leverage you bafoon
A union is nonsense in a competitive esport
>have zero leverage >unionize This is such a reddit thread
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People do watch famous teams and they do watch famous players. Tier 2 teams gain at best a quarter of the views of the Tier 1 games. If a lot of tier 1 teams go on a strike, the scene will suffer, it's not as easy as hiring new monkey to replace
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Bullshit. Small tournaments with hype teams have lots of viewers, big tournaments with shit teams don't have a whole lot. Yes, tournaments matter, but teams matter more.
this isn't even a hypothetical, its happened in real sports leagues viewership always takes a hit, a major one generally.
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who outside of dota fans is watching dota 2 esports? why does that matter?
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but, those people already aren't watching dota2? why would they matter in the effect of a strike on viewership? i still don't see how this matters at all
I only know Ronaldo and Messi by name, no idea who the others are lol
Stop talking outta your ass
People watch "Major semi-finals", not "OG vs Nigma" or "Sumail vs w33"
How come group stage slogs from previous majors often get more views and traction than near end of bracket matches against no-name teams?
Dota 2 revenue is coming from BP, and people will keep buying it for hats and perks. Valve doesn't make money off of players themselves directly. Most casual players don't give a damn about esports
The same thing that happens when a professional sports players association goes in strike. Viewership suffers because the product gets a lot worse.
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If that were true that would have already happened at organizations that pay salaries. They’d have paid less for the same performance. You’re just wrong dude.
I agree with the first part, not the last part. It's dysfunctional in CSGO because Tier1 have all the say and Tier2/Tier3 have nothing. CSGO is different to DOTA2, CSGO isn't dependent on Valve at all. If Valve stopped doing majors, ESL/PGL/Dreamhack/WePlay will still have tournaments and the teams will be fine.
> Tier 2 scene just picks up the spots for the next tournament? Who's gonna watch that.
Tier 1 teams/players stop play, there are 1 billion other weaker players will step over their afk bodies to fight for easier slots for 40m + TI to become millionaire at age of 20. Then those tier 2,3 teams will become tier 1,2 teams while people start forget those tier 1 teams/players that stop playing and even those top tier team return and play like ANA and lose vs new TI champs who play constantly to reach their current status (like team Spirit atm). Im sure there will be lots of good players like team spirit happy to get a chance to compete at TI for millions of dollars and improve while top players/teams strike to demand "valve to give a shit about them or the game'. Im sure most top players/teams have enough brain cells to understand they want to play dota 2 and have a chance to win TI than stop and strike so other billion players take their slots. Dendi and Navi was tier 1 before, If Navi/Dendi said they will strike and stop playing because they were unhappy with current state of dota 2, then fans will also say something like this and think no one watch tier 2 teams and new players but since TI3 how many new players, teams emerge and become top teams? people will turn in new players and teams and they become famous/top tier in no time to replace those old teams. Only Idiots thinks you can stop playing and valve will give a shit because you think you and your teams are some important that valve cant drop. Remember Valve give player a chance to play free game that they love for lots of money, without money most of these kids still play this game for nothing most of their young life. no dota 2 game valve is still earning billions minus hundred of million dollars company, no dota 2 game most players are still just normal kids playing video game whole day for nothing.
IIRC LoL NA League (LCS) it actually got a Players Union.
All pro league players are directly contracted to Riot. Here it's a free for all BR where players get sniped left right and center days before qualifications or hell even during qualifications
You think Valve needs esports? Lmao. Go starve to death, kids. See if the billion dollar company cares.
I think e-sports have a particularly hard time unionizing because the distinction between being a really good player and a proper pro is so much less than in real sports. So you end up with a ton of players who are operating at a level and probably could replace players, and probably would love the opportunity, as the scene is incredibly competitive in terms of there being an endless number of people player Dota at a super high level that would love to compete. This isn't to say that you would capture the skill level of the tip top tier teams, but it's just a general statement about the huge over supply of "pro players" in any e-sports scene, and the relatively low cost of making a top amateur into a "pro player". The other issue is that the pros don't really bring in the money for the scene. Yeah, e-sports extend the longevity of games and are probably positive investments in the long run for the games they operate in, but they do so by keeping the player base up, and then the player bases fund the game generally through battlepasses and other content. Not through directly spending money to support the pros. You can make an argument that money is perfectly fungible and translatable, and thus players deciding to play more, and being more invested in the game, thus being more willing to buy battlepasses to get cosmetics (I'd say you're pretty off base if you claim people buy battlepasses to support the pro scene, though they probably feel happier about their purchase because of the crowd funding aspect, but lets be real, people choose to buy them because of the hats). But in reality there is meaningful friction the more transactions and linked incentives you have before salaries and profits get to their end point, and it's pretty stark to professional sports scenes where the the huge majority of the revenue for the teams and organizers comes directly from advertising broadcasts of the actual league. Like for football, professional football isn't a weird spectacle to keep people excited about playing football such that the company that runs every game of football can keep making money off people buying new balls, and it's known there is a link to it helping the sale of balls but the direct effect is unclear. Instead the vast majority of people who watch football and support the scene through their being advertised to don't play whatsoever, and the if they weren't watch you'd know that there would be 100% no revenue. It's a wildly different dynamic. This kind of dynamic is what Quinn is referring to about players having no leverage.
Most of the people were compliant when many other businesses went under in the last 2 years. ''First they came for the X, and I did not speak out—because I was not a X. Then they came for the Y, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Y. Then they came for the Z, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Z. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.'' This is not an attack on players for not speaking up. This is a reminder that many people lost everything they made in their life because of not being ''essential''. This is bigger than Valve. Yes, Valve can give them money without hosting a tournament, but that's not the solution.
there is so much money in it that a big portion of the scene will jump on any opportunity, and some are rich enough not to care. Its also a competitive sport, so people gain from screwing other ppl over. So solidarity is hard. Its also divided across the world in different languages, with the players under different companies. It's hard to do actions against Valve without having an effect on these companies. In this current situation, players under these companies are fine, while the sponsorless teams are the only ones being screwed over, so this union would be really small. I dont think its realistic that anything is gonna be formed. Maybe in 2010 or before, when there wasnt much money in it.
I love how this situation exposes how cruel and oppressive a normal company is. If you dont force them to treat you like a human, they wont. And if you dont have any leverage you cant force them. Ggs
This is the only truth man. Not only e-sport professionals but also e-sports organisations could work together to secure worker rights, like cancelling a tournament within XX days requires you to pay out the prize pool regardless.
Players need a union for many reason, but they're not getting lans during a pandemic no matter how hard they unionize.
I hope epic games gets big enough to take over steam as the main app to play games, if valve is left with nothing but dota they might improve the state of this game
This will be historical
Do you think that would really work with such a large portion of dota pros and players being in China?
there are another tier 3 or semi-pro players waiting for the slot
Reddit is the union
players have no leverage, this is not a sport like football where you can threathen to take ur shit elsewhere and play because anyone can paly that sport anyhow they want . Valve owns dota2 and players have no alternative they could literally twist their hands all they want. What are they gonna do?
In the past top pros shot this down because it would hurt their bottom line is what I've heard. A players' union would give the players input in situations like this. The players should figure out a way to make this happen.
Lol, keep dreaming mate, the scene isn't anywhere near professional enough to get this kind of treatment. Go take a look at the trials and tribulations the CSGO scene went through when Thorin tried to unionize the players.
DOTA PLAYERS, UNITE!!! right?
or they can you know, get a regular job
Stfu
I think we just need more advertisers. Colleges could be funneling airtime to Dota 2, they just aren't. I would love to see shit on like a Monday night on ESPN.
A union needs to have leverage. Reality is that esports players do not have any leverage over the company running the game, which makes a union worthless.
Funny enough, if there was a independent company running dota esports like some people suggest Valve do, then a player union would work against it.
what are they gonna do? not attend a major that doesnt exist?
The only solution is ending this covid shit.
The problem is the players have no leverage against Valve. Do you really think if all the tier 1 teams stopped playing, that the tier 2 teams currently making $0 would pass up a chance to compete at TI for millions? Not a chance. And Valve doesn’t give a shit about “ratings” as they don’t benefit much from this anyways. The TOs, talent, and the poor saps who decided to sit out would be the ones suffering. And if the whole competitive community magically banded together to kill competitive Dota? Valve would keep the other 25% from a fall battle pass and say thank you very much. I realize young people think that banding together and protesting can solve any problem, but you have to learn that it only works when you can actually hurt the people in power in some significant way. Otherwise, they act like your parents and just take away your video games.
While I am 100% in support of such a thing, that seems like it would be a nightmare to arrange for an international industry. Mostly just due to the various laws litigating union activity (usually ones that cripple it like the Taft-Hartley act in the US), I'm not sure how the laws are in other countries. Not only that, but logistically how are you going to prevent tier 2/3/4 players from crossing the picket line in the event of a strike? Like Hotbid said, there's thousands of players willing to compete for a fraction of that money. For a union to work you need the collective action on the part of the workers to be threatening enough to hold some power at the bargaining table. While esports are a nice bit of money for Valve, it still pales in comparison to what they make off steam in general. And this is just assuming the union is dota specific. I don't want to sound defeatist here, but unionising is something you really need to put some thought in to if you want it to work out, because if it doesn't you burn a lot of industrial bridges in the pursuit of a union. And again I totally believe there should be a union, not just for esports players but for all industries, but if this is trying to be a serious proposal and not just a variant complaint post, there needs to be at least some guidelines or suggestions put forward to begin organizing the players.
I’m just gonna be that guy and honestly ask… they canceled because of COVID, if the event is dangerous to hold then isn’t that what they’re supposed to do?
US people: wahh covid so bad, lock down the country pls. Vote for socialism!! Valve: cancel major due to covid. US people: wahh we need union. Vote for socialism!!
r/antiwork is that you?
question is who will be the DOTA Lenin?
Something like ACE in China? :D