Year Beast Brawl
Yes, I know normally I do not talk about games in general on nasi le-mak but this time Valve decided to pull a big boo-boo which I am not really satisfied about. The basis of free-to-play gaming was in jeopardy and I strongly urge them to reflect on this event and not repeat the same mistake as this year's new bloom festival. I would be writing only on what Valve is doing wrongly, and not much about the event in actual fact.
Origin
Every year, Valve would hold some sort of in-game event for festivals in Dota 2. They started from the original Diretide, Halloween candy stealing and New Bloom festival.
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| An Unforgettable experience |
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| I got a redhoof in the end |
During the new bloom festival last year, only a few would have been awarded the legendary jadehoof courier for dealing the top 1% damage to Roshan at the end of each map.
In fact, they followed the same concept this year whereby there would be certain timings which the year beast would be awake and you have to fight it. Winning games of number 1,3 and 10 would enable you to achieve rewards of highest quality.
However, there is a twist to this. You would need points to upgrade the year beast that spawns every 5-10 minutes. An average person would have daily points of up to maybe 7000 or 8000. This would enable the user to be able to upgrade the year beast skills from level 1 to level 2. The upgrade from level 2 to level 3 which comprises of broken spells cost a whopping 10000 points. To put this into context, here is an image for the price of points.
A person with sufficient sense would know that we would not spend almost 25 dollars just to get that 10000 points just to get those game breaking abilities on the year beast. However, there in-evidently would be people who do so. Especially those in the lower regions of South East Asia (you know who you are). By allow these people to purchase points, Valve is destroying the concept of free-to-play and changing it to pay-to-win.
I do not judge when people purchase cosmetic items to make their hero look good or have custom skill icons because I also feel that its somewhat better looking than the original. However, what I don't get is why Valve would allow their drive for consumerism to affect yearly events which people were looking forward to for a long time.
2014 has been a big year for esports and Dota 2 in general. With a highest prize pool for a esports tournament ever, Dota 2 has moved forwards with leaps and bound with an increasing number of sponsors, coverage and fanbase. It had even allow Dota to move into top 3 MMO games, putting it just behind World of Warcraft and League of Losers.
"Since its 2011 debut, 1,500 Steam Workshop contributors have earned $57 million by selling virtual items for Valve titles like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive."
-www.superdatareasearch.com
I feel that Valve has been blinded by the commercialization of their success that they have failed to address the key issue, whereby their customers come first. Valve was set up with Half-life driving it forwards and they have moved on to Left 4 Dead and CS:GO with dota 2 as one of its newest addition in the market. With the success of the previous internationals, they have even released a documentary that captivates the viewer. It was even aptly named Free-to-play
Valve needs to know that their new methods of marketing is wrong as it seeks to antagonize the players rather than to fill their need for innovations. I strongly hope that they would not follow this path down which may lead to the inevitable doom of the company as users may just boycott the purchase of in-game cosmetics and greatly reduce the earnings of Steam.
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