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Dota 2’s player base is dropping again

It seems that no matter how much it tries, Dota 2 cannot grow. Its player base has been relatively... Radu M. | 6. January 2023

It seems that no matter how much it tries, Dota 2 cannot grow. Its player base has been relatively stable for the past five years. At times, it went slightly up or slightly down, but overall it’s been constant.

On average, there are 450.000 people playing the game at all times. The game is very fun if you can deal with the frustrating moment and millions of people enjoy watching it as much as they enjoy playing it. So why doesn’t its community grow?

The facts

Last year, one of the most popular Warcraft 3 players in the world, Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen, started to play and stream Dota 2. He was welcomed by the community and most likely made a lot of people curious about the game.

His streams were watched by thousands of people, so that must have helped Dota 2 a little bit.

Another thing that happened in 2022 was The International 11, which took place in Singapore. No doubt, that event made a lot of Asian people want to learn more about this MOBA.

A second tournament that must have stirred some interest was Riyadh Masters, which had a prize pool of $4 million!

Finally, one thing that must have helped Dota 2 was the Netflix anime, DOTA: Dragon’s Blood, whose third season aired in 2022.

These were the biggest contributors to Dota 2’s growth in 2022. The game went from having 450.000 average concurrent players in December 2021, to 523.000 average concurrent players in November 2022. That was a huge increase.

But then, in just a matter of months, the number dropped to 470.000. It’s still higher than what it used to be, but it’s still disappointing to see the game losing so many players in so little time.

What can be done

Dota 2’s community feels a lot like a Dota 2 player’s MMR. It grows steadily and then it crashes back to its original level. The main issue right now is that Valve couldn’t care less about advertising the game. They will probably never do anything significant to promote it.

Another problem is that Dota 2’s esports scene has been largely neglected over the past several years. We used to have $1 million and even $3 million events. And that used to happen many times per year. Now, the opportunities are few and far between. And the prize pools are half of what they used to be.

Without a bit of effort on Valve’s part, the game will, at best, remain at its current level.

Header: Valve Corporation