The DotA paradox: A critical insight

into playful online innovation

Josh Jarrett
@Joshua_Jarrett
Digital Cultures Research Centre,
University of the West of England

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 DotA?
• Defence of the Ancients (DotA) was a highly successful
total conversion modification for Warcraft 3 (2002,
Blizzard Entertainment)
• It radically changed the gameplay of the original game
by shifting focus away from control of many different
units and into a just one (typically) with a new
emphasis on customisation and competitive team
versus team action.
• It was a mod that ended up becoming much more
popular than the original game and since its first
inception in 2003 it has inspired the most played genre
in the world; MOBA’s.

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 MOBA’s?
• The activities of the DotA culture pioneered the Multiplayer Online Battle
Arena genre (MOBA)
• MOBA’s such as League of Legends (Riot Games, 2009), Dota 2 (2013),
Awesomenauts (Ronimo Games, 2012), Heroes of Newerth (S2 Games,
2012), Smite (Hi-Rez Studios, 2014) and Heroes of the Storm (Blizzard
Entertainment, TBA) now make up the most played online genre in the
world
• Dota 2 is the most popular game on the platform Steam by a magnitude of
ten
• League of Legends is one of the most played games in the world attracting
28 million daily players
• The MOBA genre is also responsible for some of the most influential
industry defining trends such as fair free to play (not ‘pay to win’), e-sports
and live streaming
• The focus here is on the original crucible of creativity that lead to all of
this; the Warcraft 3 mod DotA and its surrounding culture

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 DotA Culture
• DotA is a culture that first started around 2003 with the release of
Warcraft 3 and its easily accessible modding tools
• It was a culture that was left to its own devices by the original
platform holders Blizzard Entertainment due to the play of DotA
requiring an original copy of the game Warcraft 3
• The result was an entirely grassroots culture with no concern for
any commercial considerations or external goals beyond that of
creating and sustaining an enjoyable game
• The culture existed through the game itself and also wider online
paratextual spaces such as forums, player written guides and player
created videos (and later live streaming)

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•

•
the ‘playdota.com’ site

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 DotA Culture
• In many ways it represented a thriving culture of
oppositional power towards corporate produced games
and platforms
• It was this non-commercial identity that was crucial in the
development of this game and genre
• The few modders who were responsible for developing the
game were themselves players and listened to the wider
community of players to an unprecedented extent
• Unlike more commercial modes of professional
development that are very top down and often
uncompromising in the choices they implement (e.g.
Youtube comment system), DotA’s was extremely bottom
up and democratic

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 DotA Culture
• Given the amount of variables DotA contains and
the extremely competitive culture it embodies,
this collective mode of development proved
crucial in balancing the game and keeping it both
innovative and sustainable
• The game and culture embodied the ideals of a
‘meritocracy’ (see Paul, 2012: 147) and that had a
profound effect upon the design and
development of DotA
• In a sense, it was a game and a genre that could
only be born in a participatory setting

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 Connective playful innovation
• The abundance of playful experience was fed back into the
development choices of the game and the result was an incredibly
dynamic and ever evolving game system
• Spaces such as ‘playdota.com’ were extremely effective aggregators
of the attention that DotA was attracting in its play space and those
experiences circled back into the game in the form structural
changes
• ‘rule systems are never totalising. They are incomplete systems,
made real only through the interpretative work of the participants
(at times broadly construed to include formal institutional actors)
and never fully developed’ (Taylor, 2012: 57)
• The activity of play constantly brought emergent potentialities out
of the varied rules of the play space and through paying close
attention to these playful actions modders adapted DotA by adding
to or adjusting the game in order to keep it balanced

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 Connective playful innovation
• The result is a game of incredible variation and room for
expression that is at the same time balanced through the
constant play, debate and potential for continuous change
exercised by its connective culture
• The underlying aim of this production model is a game
similar Chess in that it is perfectly balanced but with vastly
more potential for emergent play styles
• For a sense of how big a challenge balancing a game such
as this is; DotA contains over one hundred unique heroes
each with four unique moves and these heroes are
customised by a pool of over one hundred items. All of
these variables combine in the heavily teamwork focused
and real time dynamics of the game

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A small sample of the heroes / items

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 Connective playful innovation
• ‘Something I’m wondering is this...when it comes to DotA, it seems
there are many counters out there for almost everything...except
disabilities. Hear me out on this...’
• DotaGuy86 (A1)
• ‘I myself was glad to see this item, as I play mostly nukers, support
and glass cannons, couldn’t be happier to see this item. Now, as
much as it is useful, it is very situational. Let’s review its pros and
cons...’
• Unfawkable (A2)
• ‘Was wondering what you guys think about [the hero skill]
Slithereen crush. In my opinion it is overpowered in comparison to
other aoe [area of effect] stuns/slows and causes [the hero]
Slithereen guard to be overpowered...’
• Mfaa (A3)

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 Gaming authenticity / capital
• Unlike many productive online cultures that it is
easy to also frame DotA as; the primary goal for
most players was not to improve the game itself
• The vast majority of players wished to improve
their game, display their own cultural or gaming
(Consalvo, 2009) capital to others through being
original in their play styles
• More in common with sub-cultural styles which
are similar bottom up displays of authenticity
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 Gaming authenticity / capital
• Opening to a player written strategy guide:
• ‘Welcome to DotA.
You suck, and you are going to be constantly
reminded of this fact for about 6 – 9 months (if
you learn). If you read this guide and use your
brain and be actively aware of how bad you suck,
you can easily shave 3 – 6 months off of your
complete noob status.’
‘Unfortunately, DotA has a massive learning
curve.’
Purge (B1)
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 Gaming authenticity / capital
• ‘Just curious to what you guys think.
For me, I seem to be buying treads less and less, while AB / PB more and more (I
buy BoT later on). I know treads seems to be the most common boots in
competitive, but I don’t find them that useful.’
• Fireblaze762 (B2)

• ‘Furion is my favourite hero, I play him a lot and I notice how actively he is used in
the current metagame.
However furion has a lot of different styles, you have the solo furi rushing dagon,
the foresting pusher, the support and the farmer carry. What do you guys deem
the most efficient of the play styles? Personally I love the dagon ganker, however I
also find it very efficient to get treads and janggo and gank and roam around
without dagon as well. Furi will always have decent farm, but often at the cost of
stealing some farm from carries, therefore I feel it is important to use the farm
well, and not spend it on expensive items that will grow useless over time, such as
dagon for instance.’
• callemacody (B3)

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Wider political economic implications
of DotA’s culture
• At the time I was carrying out this research
the culture was going through a moment of
transition as corporate iterations of the same
genre pioneered by the DotA culture were
being released (see MOBA games)
• In large part the culture of DotA was agnostic
about the prospect of their grassroots genre
being remade and profited upon by external
commercial lead developers

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 Wider political economic implications
of DotA’s culture
• The majority of players felt that there was little problem with corporate developers
effectively assimilating the innovations of DotA’s culture
• On the subject of Dota 2 (made by Valve Corporation) most respondents felt:

• ‘IMO a corporate version of DotA will be better than the current DotA, partly
because it's Valve.’
• iIoveyou (C1)
• ‘I think Valve should be able to do better on quality of programming resulting in
reduced bugs and better mechanics.’
• Mfs_313 (C1)
• ‘[In terms of] quality it should be better with Valve supporting the development.’
• Vot1_Bear (C1)
• ‘I think being Valve this corporation that you talk about, [it] makes me trust in
them.’
• DemonDays (C1)
• ‘Valve is doing a pretty bad job at being a corporate body.’
• Hideinlight (C1)

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 Wider political economic implications
of DotA’s culture
• Some respondents expressed concerns over the corporate iterations of the genre, although it
should be emphasised that these views were in the minority

• ‘In [terms of] creativity, no way. In terms of dedication, nope. Man, take a look at the long history of
PC video games. I've come to the conclusion that fan-made mods, [and] unofficial patches are even
better than the developers' content. The developers' work is more or less done after the game
ships and brings in sales.’
• Thiede (C1)
• ‘I think creativity will kind of suffer. I don't think that now Icefrog can actually pick a whole hero
idea from a suggestion. Royalty issues. Being a community project for fun, you could add just about
anything in it. I bet we could have added superman as a hero and no one would have cared. But
now since it’s a paid for entity, things will be curbed within the legal rights.’
• Mfs_313 (C1)
• ‘I don't think it is possible to be more creative than the original simply because anyone with any
creative influence will have to work within the boundaries of the corporate needs.’
• CanderSlow (C1)
• ‘Dota vanilla [another term for DotA] has been carried on for years by fans (Icefrog, beta testers,
programmers, PD community) so I think that including too much money into it, for me, will dispel
the original spirit of this great adventure.’
• 4N4C0ND4 (C1)

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 Current state of the game;
DotA paradox
• The mod still exists and is still being developed by its community
however it is a shadow of its previous self
• Commercial iterations of the game most notable with the release of
League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth and Dota 2 have taken the
place of the self sustaining grassroots game that DotA once was
• It is now a genre worth literally hundreds of millions of pounds
which the vast majority of DotA’s original pioneers and innovators
do not see
• Paradoxically however, the majority of the players involved in that
original culture do not mind
• Much the same as the model of production that was a side product
of the individual motivations players, the monetisation of the genre
and by extension those same players is not a concern to them

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 Thank you for your time

Josh Jarrett - @Joshua_Jarrett

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