Dota 2

Dota 2 is Valve’s premiere competitive free-to-play MOBA, the follow-up to the game that started the MOBA genre, Defense of the Ancients. Launched in 2013 to provide an alternative to Riot Games’ League of Legends, Dota 2 cranks up the strategy dial, requiring mastery of one’s hero and exemplary communication between all team members in a game that consistently ranks as one of the best MOBAs in the world.

Two opposing teams of five players select from over a hundred heroes, each with their own unique abilities, to fill out their teams. They travel down three lanes, each guarded by a series of defensive towers and patrolled by AI enemies that are friendly to one of the teams and spawn continuously. The space between lanes, the “jungle,” is occupied by neutral enemies that either team can kill to obtain bonuses. The object of the game is to push through the opponents’ defenses all the way to their base, where their Ancient resides, and destroy it.

Heroes come in a wide variety of flavors, with many different talents and roles. They increase in power as their team kills AI enemies and other players, accumulating XP to level up and gold that can be used to purchase items at their base. Making the proper purchases for your role is an essential piece of strategy, to the point that having the correct “build” is a major part of your strategy.

Thanks in part to its visibility on Valve’s Steam platform, Dota 2 also has a very active professional competitive e-sports scene, with local, regional, national, and worldwide tournaments that offer millions of dollars in prizes. A documentary, titled Free to Play, was released in 2014, and it’s an example of how serious Valve is about bringing e-sports into the mainstream, using its games to tell a story and presenting them as a viable viewing option on par with major professional sports.