Valve triggers shitstorm after cancelling Dota 2 major

After Valve cancelled the Dota Pro Circuit Winter Tour Major 2022 rather tonelessly because of Corona in particular the Omikron variant, there is now harsh feedback from the community. As a result, more stories surfaced that don’t exactly paint the company in a good light. Valve has since publicly apologized for the poor communication.

Shortly after Valve canceled the tournament, it hailed criticism from streamers, teams, players and casters. The reason for the cancellation is still the Corona virus, which is once again causing travel restrictions. The problem is not really that the tournament was cancelled, but how. There was no announcement on any of DOTA’s official social media pages and very little communication with participating organizations, teams, and players.

Poor communication and questionable announcements

All that was said is that the tournament is cancelled and that there will be no replacement date for the major. With that, silence reigned once again. Most of the criticism revolves around Valve communicating very poorly and the loss of such an important event having a direct impact on the stability of the scene.

And as always when there is a shitstorm, more dirt comes to light. According to multiple sources, Valve had a direct meeting with all participating teams after The International and asked them to stop going public with complaints and instead contact Valve But contacting Valve directly is apparently proving extremely difficult – teams that tried to reach them were not getting through to them.

For example, Team PuckChamp, whose lineup includes Kazakh players. Since there is political unrest in Kazakhstan at the moment, they didn’t know how these players would get to the tournament. That’s why they tried to get in touch with Valve. But Valve didn’t react. Instead of informing the teams about the problems behind the scenes, Valve just quietly cancelled the tournament.

Most eams have not felt taken seriously or valued by Valve for some time.  Maurice “KheZu” Gutmann (Quincy Crew) put it this way, “Their actions completely reflect that mindset. They don’t give a damn about their supposed ‘partners’.”

Valve has also reportedly informed teams that the company makes very little money from The Internationals and that speaking out against the way the DPC is handled could result in “Valve being less motivated to continue hosting The Internationals.” Kind of sounds like a shady way to pressure organizations to behave the way Valve wants them to.

Valve made a big mistake

In the meantime, Valve has apologized for its poor communication, saying, “We should have done a better job of informing you all about the risks of the event, and we also should have been more willing to take a different approach to finding a way to close out the first season,” Valve said. “For that we apologize.”

The tournament would have featured a $500,000 prize pool. What happens next is not yet clear. The problem – namely the Omikron variant and the resulting travel restrictions- still exists. The regional leagues of the winter tour will come to an end on January 23 with the last games in China. After that, there will likely be a short break before Valve tries to organize a replacement major.

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