4Game

Call it copium, call it delusion, call it whatever you want. But I say this honestly, I think Dota 2 has at least 10 more years left before it actually looks like it'll die.

And I'm tired of Valve pretending like that's not the case.

Think about Counter Strike in that context. It's been around for so long. And when Valorant was going to come out, people thought it would be the CS:GO killer. Even after Valorant's success, CS:GO peaked in 2020/2021, breaking Dota 2's peak playercount record.

Now I'm sure people are going to say Valve haven't given up on Dota and that they're doing so much. But the slow descent in interest and quality of things is showing.

There are other signs, of production companies and esports orgs pulling out of Dota 2 entirely. The betting sponsors and increasingly greedy monetization of battle passes. And the looming news of what's going to happen after TI.

But only if Valve continue to be serious and give proper attention to the core game and esport side of things will people feel confident in investing their time, money and efforts. They've said in the past, "Let updates do the talking". Well, right now the updates seem like they're thinking of how to best monetize "the last few years".

That's just my two cents. I guess the actual "news" after TI will tell what they really plan to do.