A look at how Valve operates and why updates are becoming slower and slower

Valve is very different to other AAA Companies. While other game and software developers usually hire people for specific projects, Valve has some sort of a work on whatever you want whenever you want firm policy. That means that if the guy that worked on a specific feature such Guilds or Dota+ leaves the team, this person will not be replaces by someone that takes over their work, which can quickly result in features no longer being maintained and updated.

Dota 2 is a very old game, and compared to TF2 and CS:GO we can consider ourselves VERY lucky when it comes to updates, because even if a game is still popular, Valve tends to let them die without trying to hire new passionate developers that want to work on that one project.

The game will soon celebrate its 10th anniversary and it is very likely that most of the original Dota 2 devs have left at this point. This is completely normal, everyone would burn out from working on the same project for this long. Even Icefrog left the team years ago to work on Neon Prime but has returned to Dota just recently according to rumors. He is the guy that brings the chaos into the game and his absence was very noticeable in recent years.

However. To get to the point, Dota is not receiving the updates we are hoping for because it is likely that the developer team is smaller than ever before and fails to attract other developers at Valve to join the team. Over the next years, it is also very likely that the situation will not get any better, it will probably be the complete opposite. More and more Dota 2 developers will leave and leave behind empty chairs, especially because community complains will raise and the remaining devs will lose motivation to continue their work.

Dota could easily last another decade, but it's totally up to Valve. The game deserves its own dedicated developer team, with job listings specifically just for Dota. I highly doubt that Valve would have any issues finding talented and passionate people that would love to work on the game. Will it ever happen? Nah, the chance is probably close to zero. They did not even want to hire people like Slacks as Community Manager for the game. It is very sad that Valve sticks to their firm policy so hard that they rather let games loved by millions die than making an exception and do what's the best for the game and the community. This could even result in Valve making even more profit with the game if it gets a 2nd wind, but since this goes against Valves firm policy it won't happen even if Valve would profit from it in the long run.

With that being said, a big shoutout to the few people that are still dedicating their time to the development of the game and don't just quit to work on the new fancy stuff Valve is working on. You guys are the GOATS and deserve everything.