4Game

Valve thinks the best way to retain players is by releasing few high quality cosmetics that cannot be attained at a later point of time. This makes your Dota 2 account valuable and something hard to let go off.

Also, in order to attract new players, they release heroes that they think will be interesting or intriguing to younger people. Heroes like Marci are exactly that.

But people tend to think Valve is being greedy and the new heroes "don't belong in Dota 2". If they released a fuck ton of "high value" cosmetics that can be easily attained like in Fortnite (as this guy pointed out), they lose their value.

Also, marketing the game isn't as effective if people come to play the game but don't see something that makes them stick. It only creates an artificial bump in numbers. New heroes that have fresh designs a good way of doing that.

In contrast, I see Riot Games make their players stick to the game by making them grind to unlock characters. I think this is worse than what Valve does.

I hate to say it but, at the end of the day, people who can afford to buy and level up the battle pass see no problem with it. I used to think the same way reddit is complaining right now. I'm not making a "people are entitled" argument like this guy. But you have to think about how this keeps the game alive and populated.