With Valve dropping the battle pass from its Dota 2 plans moving forward, a lot of players were concerned with how that decision would impact The International and competitive Dota. The community is still mixed, but Tundra Esports captain Sneyking has hope it is a step toward “reinvigorating” the game beyond TI.
Last month, Valve officially retired the battle pass and announced it would be shifting how it updates Dota to be more “diverse in form and scale” like it was before TI absorbed everything over time. This is something Sneyking views as a positive step for normal players and toward broadening the competitive scene, though he isn’t quite sold just yet.
“I have mixed feelings on this move by Valve,” Sneyking said to Dot Esports.
“I think it is good for Dota players to have less focus on TI and more so on the rest of the season,” he continued. “As of right now, the only thing that matters in Dota is doing well at TI. Having more focus on the importance of the results of the rest of the season is something that I think would be good for the scene.”
The importance of TI has been a talking point in the community for a long time, especially when the Dota Pro Circuit’s regional system was introduced in 2021, which shrunk the prize pool for Majors and left the wider Dota scene shriveled for third-party events.
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That is starting to change now, with TI’s prize pool last year dropping for the first time in a decade and more non-DPC events popping back up to facilitate constant competition again. This season, that has been exemplified with ESL starting its own Dota Pro Tour and tying it into the $15 million Riyadh Masters tournament.
That is part of why Sneyking thinks a “dwindling” prize pool and focus on TI will be good, since it will reinvigorate interest in other events and hopefully get Valve to support the DPC Majors more moving forward. And, when paired with the new focus on patch and content diversity, should be a healthy change to keep the game fresh.
“I think it is good to have more consistent patches throughout the year rather than just one big patch centered around the battle pass,” Sneyking said. “The rest of the year outside of the battle pass has been quite barren and boring. So a change of pace would be nice to see!”
We haven’t seen any changes at the Major level yet, but there are reports Valve is actually going to boost its initial contribution to TI this year to help compensate for the lack of a battle pass. Any additional Dota 2 updates will likely be shared closer to September when Valve is set to release its new TI-themed bundle.
