Valve Posts An Update on The Competitive Scene and DPC

Vignesh Raghuram
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Valve Posts An Update on The Competitive Scene and DPC

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After the negative feedback that Valve has received from the Dota 2 community over the last few days, Valve has finally posted a response detailing the steps they will be taking to ensure that the competitive esports will still be viable for players, teams, viewers, and tournament organizers. Valve also clarified the status of the DPC, TI10, and streaming third party tournaments through DotaTV.

Valve's Updates on The State of The DPC and TI10

Valve Posts An Update on The Competitive Scene and DPC
  • Valve started the blog by explaining what the company has been doing and how they’ve been coordinating with third-party tournament organizers after the DPC was cancelled.

  • Valve considered hosting a TI with no fans and just the teams, broadcast talent. But they found it to be not viable.

  • Valve does not want to run the DPC without cross-regional play, since it is a very important component of how we allocate DPC points for The International.

  • According to Valve, the DPC tournaments will likely resume in January or February of 2021 and that TI10 will happen in August 2021 in Stockholm, Sweden. However, they also have backup countries just in case.

The Immediate Future of Competitive Esports

  • Valve claims that there are going to be at least four third party events and leagues in EU/CIS events, three in China, and a few others that are still in the preliminary planning stages and are not able to commit at this time.

  • However, the company also acknowledged that a lot of teams, casters, organizers, and fans around the world are not going to have any tournaments to look forward to, based on the current trajectory and that is was their fault for not pushing on those and supporting them enough.

  • So they've started reaching out to more tournament organizers to offer help and financial support in order to be able to create increased coverage globally for the remainder of the year

  • These events will be gradually announced over the remaining season.

Dota 2 Broadcasting Rights And Whether Streamers Can Broadcast Third-Party Tournaments

Valve Posts An Update on The Competitive Scene and DPC

Valve also announced a slight adjustment to Dota TV streaming rights.

  • Valve still believes that streamers providing their own commentary of a tournament is a net positive value to fans and the competitive scene. According to them, the tournaments will also benefit from the additional exposure

  • However, starting September 15, the DotaTV license will be updated to reflect the following: 
    • Organizers that run Dota 2 Tournaments will have to provide community streamers with a reasonable and simple to execute set of non-monetary requirements, such as displaying the organizers sponsors on their streams or having a slight delay on the games.

    • Community streamers will be able to use the DotaTV feed in their broadcast as long as they agree to those requirements.
  • This means that streamers like Gorgc and AdmiralBulldog will have to adhere to the Tournament Organizers' non-monetary requirements to be able to broadcast Dota 2 tournaments.

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Vignesh has been covering the esports industry for nearly 5 years starting with the early days of the DPC. His industry expertise includes experience in Dota 2, CS:GO and Mobile Esports coverage.