While many developers will talk about treating digital sports like ‘real’ sports, only Valve have fully realised that a real sports culture needs real sports fans. More than simply watching and playing games, sports fans idly think about matches, have favourite players, identify with teams, and will tell everyone who’ll listen that they know better than teams’ managers. Dota 2 already sells virtual team flags to wave, virtual wizard shirts officially endorsed by famous players, and virtual sticker albums to collect pictures of your favourite boys. Now Valve are having a real crack at another sports culture staple, fantasy leagues.

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Dota 2 and the International turned my Dotachums into schoolchildren last year. “Dendi. Have you got Dendi? I need Dendi,” would come the Steam messages desperately seeking a picture of the Ukranian player’s face for TI3′s Compendium, a sort of Panini World Cup sticker album for Dota. “I’ll swap you ixmike88 and ChuaN for Dendi!” Valve launched this year’s new Compendium on Friday and it looks like it’ll be ruddy huge, as sales have added over $2 million to The International 2014′s prize pool.

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To illustrate how delightful/horrifying (delete according to taste) Dota 2‘s complexity is, I like to point to patch notes. Dota 2 and its monozygotic mod twin are still being balanced after a decade, with small changes coalescing into big effects on how we play the game. Have a gander at the changelog for Friday’s sizeable Spring Cleaning update, which affects almost every hero and lots of items with small changes that should ultimately shake the game up for months to come.

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Valve tend to approach every project with a similar ethos, regardless of whether they’re making a game, some software, an operating system or, it turns out, a movie. Their first attempt at the latter, a documentary about professional Dota 2 players called Free To Play, spent much of last year being beta tested in front of private audiences, was premiered at The International 3 in Seattle, and then disappeared back into development for another eight months. As of yesterday, it’s now in general release, and available to download for free via Steam.

A trailerThe full movie is embedded below along with some more detail. … [visit site to read more]

Heroes of the Storm‘s developers might have made some major missteps (that they apologized for), but that doesn’t mean the game itself isn’t looking extremely promising. I played a fair amount of Blizzard’s MOB- excuse me, “hero brawler” during BlizzCon, and I found it to be a streamlined approach to an often unwieldy genre that could provide a nice alternative when lengthy LoL or DOTA 2 matches sound unappetizing. But man, it’s still really weird> to see Jim Raynor – decked out in full space marine garb, no less – riding a pony whose spine probably looks like a rusted-over sawblade at this point. 17 mins of informatively shoutcasted footage below.

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At some point, we’re just going to have to accept the fact that Valve is all>. Where once it was merely a humble game developer, it now has a synonymous-with-PC-gaming storefront, its own series of console-ish boxes, a mini-convention, a virtual reality department, the largest collection of virtual hats on Earth, and every number in human history all the way up to 2. Oh, and now it’s got its own movie too, because why not? Free To Play: The Movie is a high-budget Valve production about three DOTA 2 pros. Color me intrigued. And also purple. I am feeling very purple right now.

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INT: Valve HQ, midnight. GABE NEWELL, DOUG LOMBARDI, MARC LAIDLAW, CHET FALISZEK, ERIK WOLPAW, ROBIN WALKER, SAXTON HALE and MR G. MANN sit astride their genetically-engineered red and black-striped lynx, supping liquid gold from goblets carved out of velicoraptor skulls.>

NEWELL: Gentlemen! I have gathered you here today to discuss my gravest concern. The day we have long awaited is here.

ALL: [Anxious muttering, some shouting.]>

NEWELL: [Holds up a hand. The room falls quiet immediately.]> No, please, silence. It’s true. The time has come. We have made… [bows head. In pride? In shame? In reverence?>] We have made enough money. We need no more. There is nothing we could do with more. Nothing is beyond our reach. Our work is done. Complete our last remaining project, and then we shall shut the doors on our mighty empire. (more…)

Valve have learnt their lesson from Diretide: don’t deny the Dota 2 community their holiday celebrations. That means that Frostivus is back. The holiday event is traditionally quite lovely. Last year’s Frostivus started normally before being taken over by The Greeviling, an update and game mode in which players can use their Greevil a secondary hero. At this point, I’d normally make a crack about how I don’t understand any of this and don’t care, but truthfully, I do> understand it. It’s just easier to be flippant than explain all the context. Instead, this time, I’ll take door number three and link to the Dota 2 wiki page about the Greeviling event.

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The witch is dead, League of Legends pros can once again stream whatever they want, and eSports is saved! OK, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, but I really> didn’t like the potential implications of Riot’s decision to contractually forbid its pros from streaming Dota 2, Hearthstone, World of Tanks, and tens of other extremely popular games. Fortunately, after copious uproarious outcry, Riot decided to rethink its portentously controlling decision. Now pros are able to stream whatever strikes their fancy or tickles their murder bones, though certain sponsorships/promotional angles are still off-limits. This is admittedly much> better, but I’m still concerned about Riot’s position near the top of the eSports food chain. Allow me to explain why.

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When I wrote my Homeric epic about attending League of Legends’ Championship Series, one of my biggest fears was that Riot’s stranglehold on its own game’s eSports scene could eventually suffocate pros and the scene itself. A game creator, after all, will inevitably have different priorities than a dyed-in-the-wool sports organization – especially compared to the way eSports leagues currently operate. And yet, here we are. LCS season 4 contracts are now in the hands of pros, and they contain some sticky stipulations. The most worrisome among them? The one that forbids all contracted pros from streaming DOTA 2, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Heroes of Newerth, World of Tanks, and many more for the duration of the season.

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