ESL has announced a deal with Facebook that will make the social media site its "main broadcast partner" for CS:GO Pro League and ESL One events. The move will enable ESL to offer esports fans "a much more advanced viewing experience which also connects to the existing Facebook pages of teams, players and talents." 

One of the driving forces behind the decision to partner with Facebook is Facebook Watch, a video-on-demand service announced last year that supports 1080p/60fps and VR streaming. Facebook's "viewing with friends" function, which enables private chats with Facebook friends who are also watching the broadcasts, and Messenger service will also encourage a more "collaborative experience," as ESL described it, when watching streams. 

"For years ESL has used Facebook to nurture its global community while broadening the audience for esports competition to millions of fans worldwide," Facebook Games Partnerships global director Leo Olebe said. "Having two of ESL’s most adored properties for CS:GO and Dota 2 streaming exclusively on Facebook is the next step in our efforts to delight the passionate esports community on Facebook." 

The move to Facebook might seem like an odd one to esports fans used to getting their fix on Twitch, and replies to the announcement on Twitter make it clear that fans aren't universally thrilled with the new primary platform. But ESL expects that it will actually help expand its viewership and bring esports further into the mainstream. "We’re excited to now be at a stage where we can take the next step towards realizing our shared ambition to grow the overall esports audience and to bring our sports to an even broader group of viewers than ever before," the company said. 

The cost of the deal wasn't announced, but I'm willing to venture that it was probably steep. SportsBusiness Daily reported last week that Twitch paid $90 million for a two-year streaming deal with the Overwatch League. 

ESL streaming on Facebook will begin with Dota 2 at ESL One Genting, running January 23-28, and CS: Pro League Season 7 on February 13. If you can't watch on Facebook, or for some reason just don't want to, embedded streams will still be viewable on the ESL website. 

Following recent changes to Filipino government regulations, Valve has pulled its support of the proposed Galaxy Battles 2018 Dota 2 Major. Set to run between January 15—21 in Ciudad de Victoria's Philippine Arena, Valve has rescinded its Major designation but is now working to run a similar tournament with the invited and qualifying teams.  

"Based on information we’ve recently confirmed regarding new government regulations for esports players entering the Philippines, we have decided to rescind the tournament’s Major designation, including the Pro Circuit qualifying points, for the Galaxy Battles 2018 tournament," reads this post on the Dota 2 blog. "This is based on what we feel are unreasonable infringements on the privacy of the players, as a condition to enter the country. The tournament itself may still proceed, but without any involvement of Valve or the Dota Pro Circuit."

Valve underscores its decision does not reflect how it feels about the Philippines itself, and apologises to anyone who'd planned to attend. 

According to the information listed by the Republic of Philippines' Games and Amusement Board, professionally recognised athletes hoping to perform in the Philippines must ascertain these credentials. A number of Reddit users in turn speculate Valve's decision to pull support reflects the country's ongoing drug problems. 

Speaking to the event, the Dota 2 blog post adds: "As a result, we’re talking to tournament organizers to try to find a way to run a Major with the invited and qualifying teams, including the Pro Circuit points that would have been available in Galaxy Battles 2018."

Battle.net may have Destiny 2, but Steam has millions of simultaneous PUBG players. GOG may have the best collection of DRM-free games, but Valve has, well, PUBG again. And Dota 2, and CS:GO. Competition has increased a lot in the past 10 years, but despite the growth of GOG, itch.io, Origin, Battle.net, the Microsoft Store, and others, Steam is still the gaming store on PC, and Valve runs two of the biggest esports in existence. Its influence on PC gaming can't be understated, so it naturally receives heaps of criticism and suggestions from players and developers alike. That's how it goes when you're on top.

Ruling out obvious fantasy, like a DRM-free release of Half-Life 3, here's what we hope PC gaming's de facto leader does in 2018.

A Steam interface overhaul

A big update to Steam's interface was teased last year, and it's about time. While Steam has changed a lot since 2003—mostly as new features were tacked on—it still leaves much to be desired. Better automated sorting of our libraries would be a start. If you have tags, why not let us use them? The controller settings are weird, opening in a Big Picture Mode-style window and changing my Steam overlay to the same as if there's no way someone would use a controller at their desk. The music section of my library is a mess, with repeat entries that don't play. In other words, the tacked-on features feel tacked on. Without entirely throwing out the interface we're used to, an extensive UI and feature refresh would be welcome. (GOG Galaxy's version rollback feature would be welcome, too.) —Tyler Wilde

CS:GO on Source 2

The biggest thing on the wishlist for CS:GO players heading into the new year is the long-awaited move to the Source 2 engine. Rumors have been circulating about when this change-over will finally happen for at least two years now, since shortly after Dota 2 was moved to the new engine in the fall of 2015. Valve confirmed back in April that they’re working on giving CS:GO the same treatment, but so far this update has yet to materialize.In addition to the presumed graphical optimizations of moving to the new engine, the content creation tools for new maps, new skins, etc. are allegedly a vast improvement over the original Source tools. Hopefully, this means we’ll see a glut of new user-created content when the update drops, thanks to the modernized and more user-friendly creation tools.

Similarly, the other big item on the wishlist is the promised upgrade to the new “Panorama UI”, a complete overhaul of all of CS:GO’s menus and interfaces using the panel-based UI that Dota 2 has already adopted. Just like the Source 2 update, this change has been in the works for quite some time now; Valve confirmed they were “preparing” for the UI switch at least as far back as the summer of 2016, but as with everything else Valve does, they’ve been rather tight-lipped about any sort of timeline for the Panorama implementation.

Below these big-ticket items on our 2018 wishlist, there are a litany of smaller changes we’d like to see happen:

• Classic maps like Mirage and Dust would benefit from the same sort of overhaul Inferno, Nuke, and Dust 2 have received over the last couple of years. 
• The map pool could use some fresh entries (or some revivals of classic entries) to keep the competitive meta interesting. 
• An unranked version of CS:GO’s core 5-vs.-5 competitive format has been a popular community ask for years now.
• Valve’s anti-cheat technology is lagging behind third-party services like ESEA, and could use a serious upgrade.

The astute observer will notice that almost everything mentioned herein could’ve just as easily appeared on a similar list at the end of last year. It often feels like CS:GO is a lower priority for Valve than its other esports juggernaut, Dota 2, so while there are plenty of updates we’d like to see in 2018, it seems unwise to get our hopes up that many of them will happen particularly soon. Nonetheless, we’ll keep our fingers crossed. —Mitch Bowman

A little warning before Dota 2 changes

The TI7 contestants were announced abruptly. The Pro Circuit system was announced abruptly. The games contest was announced, and soon extended, abruptly. Gameplay mini-patches were released abruptly, at one point abruptly breaking custom games. 

A surprise is nice sometimes, but when it comes to Dota 2, one of the biggest games in the world, not everything should come as such. At least a million players likely clock in every day, and a significant chunk of that population—plus some non-players—follow the competitive scene that’s grown from it. Basically, there are a lot of players trying to just play the game and keep up on a fundamental level. 

So, for many out there already irrevocably attached to the experience, frequently needing to stay up-to-date and ready-to-go is exhausting. Maybe it’s just become part of the Dota life: you wake up, see if Valve has done something, and then continue with life. But why does it have to be like that?

Dota 2 players could use a little communication. Just a bit. You can put something off for six hours to get us ready, and you don’t have to give a Riot-length explanation, nor a Developer Diary. It can be a six-hour heads-up on a patch, an announcement of an announcement, or a new way to share what teams are heading to TI. Have someone sit at a computer and press the buttons so people don’t guess teams from the source code. Or all of the above. Valve, you’re allowed to steal these ideas. In fact, please do. 

Of course, we’re also talking about Valve here, and that’s just part of how they do things. I’m sure they’re aware, but the reason why they haven’t changed anything is beyond me and anyone else in the scene who isn’t actually a Valve employee. But it doesn’t hurt to ask. —Victoria Rose

Improved moderation and curating

Steam Direct is great for new developers who don't have publishers, but the consequence is an influx of ripoffs and shovelware. In theory, Steam's algorithmic discovery tools and Curators should surface only the best games, and truthfully, my store page is looking pretty nice during the Winter Sale—a healthy mix of good deals and games I might be interested in. But that's not quite the case in the Popular New Releases section, which is consistently full of free or free-to-play games. Free games aren't necessarily bad, but the 'popularity' metric means free clickers and gags naturally get promoted over anything with even a small price tag, potentially burying great games that dare to cost five bucks. 

2018 should see an even bigger influx of new games—thousands upon thousands—and I'm skeptical that these automated and community-driven tools will be able to keep up. At the minimum, I hope Valve more aggressively cuts asset flips—which it did a bit of in 2017—and outright insulting games, and sets a clearer policy on nudity and sex. It's been totally inconsistent in that latter regard, even receiving criticism from a porn game distributor.

An increase in moderation is doubly needed in the Steam community. It took me five seconds to find a group advertised with a lynching icon and a swastika. Delete. —Tyler Wilde

As always, a game

Valve says it's working on a few, but we aren't holding our breath. And no, nice as it was, Bridge Constructor Portal doesn't count. —Tyler Wilde

In the PC Gamer Q&A, we ask our panel of writers a question about games. This week, the theme is neglecting loved ones. Which game have you snuck off from family to play during the holidays? Let us know your suggestions in the comments. 

Jody Macgregor: Terminal Velocity 

Terminal Velocity was one of the only shareware games I owned the full version of, thanks to a rich uncle who was my main source of videogames. (He also gave me a copy of the original Warcraft, which I still have in a jewel case somewhere.) It was a flight sim that played like a first-person shooter, similar to Descent but with more open levels where you flew through the sky over alien planets. After I unwrapped Terminal Velocity I spent the rest of the holiday ignoring the rellies to play it, and I still remember the way trees popped into sight before the ground they sat on, the way Target Destroyed appeared up in big white letters every time you turned an installation into a blocky explosion, and the sections where you flew inside the planet through hexagonal tunnels and I always hit the sides.I tracked down a digital copy a while back but still haven't played it again. It's enough to know that it's there in case I ever feel the need to get away from everyone. I bet I'll still get crushed by the steel doors that iris shut in the tunnels.

Andy Kelly: Euro Truck Simulator 2

Spending time with family and all that other holiday stuff is fine, sure, for a bit. But sometimes I get the urge. The urge to truck. This festive period I'll be enjoying a bit of Euro Truck Simulator 2, which has recently been expanded to include Italy. So while people are watching films they already own on DVD on the telly, peppered with adverts for January sofa sales, I'll be delivering 16 tonnes of ice-cream from Rome to Milan. But because it's the holidays I'll be doing it accompanied by rich chocolates and luxury ales. Keep on truckin'? I never stop, mate.

Philippa Warr: Dota 2

Let me tell you about a small, obscure game you may not have heard of: Dota 2. A few years ago it was a far bigger part of my life. Writing about it as a freelancer helped me pay my bills and playing it with a regular crew helped me build up a framework of friendships, new and old, after a horribly drawn-out breakup. As a result it ended up as part of my new routine and I leant on it during newly solitary holiday periods. Playing Dota 2 on my terrible laptop over Christmas in 2012 during an in-game event called The Greeviling is one of my fondest memories in gaming. It was daft, it was funny and it was time with people I love.

Tim Clark: Metroid Prime

Will anyone mind if I answer a console game? Probably, but on we go regardless. One Christmas I received Metroid Prime for the GameCube, and managed to make it to the first boss just as Christmas lunch was being served. Without being able to save before the boss, I refused to sit down and eat (bear in mind I would have been 26 at the time) until the fight was done. Somehow, despite the stress induced by my mother's obvious fury, I managed to down the boss with only a sliver of health to spare. But as soon as I entered the corridor leading from the boss room to the save point a small bat flew into my head and killed me. With it went several hours of progress. I sat silent for the most of the meal, cheeks burning with a mix of shame and resentment. The most magical time of the year. 

Samuel Roberts: Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

A few Christmases ago, instead of politely talking to my parents while they were making dinner, I sat in my room and played the challenge rooms of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood over and over again. First, it taught me that this game has some amazing kill animations, and secondly, I learned that Assassin's Creed's combat really isn't the best match for score attack modes. Still, I appreciate that they tried. 

Dota 2 has reworked its Ranked matchmaking system, swapping the old stacking matchmaking rating value (MMR) for a range of Seasonal Rank Medals. With it, the game's inaugural six-month Ranked Season has also kicked off.   

As detailed in this blog post, the new system represents players' "highest performance level for the current season"—meaning medals reflect their highest rank, despite the tier they play in. "A Seasonal Rank Medal never decreases in rank once you’ve achieved it. Initial calibration games will be seeded roughly based on your previous skill," reads the post. 

Across seven levels—Herald, Guardian, Crusader, Archon, Legend, Ancient, and Divine—progression is hinged on a five-star system, which looks something like this:

The post adds: "Your performance in both Party and Solo games is considered when evaluating your skill and determining when your Medal gets upgraded, with Solo games having a bigger impact. In order for players to achieve either the Ancient or Divine Medals, only Solo-game performance is considered.

"This update also expands the Leaderboard system to include many more players. Players with 5 stars on the Divine Rank Medal (the highest rank) will now have a leaderboard number listed with the medal that broadcasts their position amongst other players. This leaderboard position will always be displayed alongside the Medal, and will be visible to all players in the game and on your profile."

Turbo mode was one of the headline announcements when Dota 2's Dueling Fates update hit. It's a version of the main 5v5 mode where everyone picks the hero they feel like playing (no bans or particular pick order or anything) but it's a lot shorter. It's also the best thing Valve have added to the game in years. 

I think Turbo mode got a bit lost in the excitement about two new heroes—one new character is such a rare occurrence in Dota so two is like early Christmas. Plus the patch notes themselves were more than 11,000 words long, each sentence detailing a new change. With the sheer volume and complexity of stuff to parse—nap time for neutral monsters, free mangoes for particular heroes—I feel like Turbo mode ended up not exactly overlooked but, as one of the changes which was actually easy to understand, you could give it a nod and move on. 

The way it achieves brevity is as follows: each hero earns gold and experience faster so they can buy items faster and level up faster; defensive towers are weaker so it's not as hard to knock them down; respawn times are reduced meaning you spend less time definitely not grumpily tabbing out while dead; and you can buy anything from anywhere instead of summoning a long-suffering donkey or dithering in a side shop.

All of this leads to a quicker, lower-stakes style of match which is more forgiving to newcomers and rusty returnees alike. I think it might actually end up being my main mode in the same way that ARAM (all random, all mid) is in League of Legends.

I think the best thing here is that pretty much everything about the game is set up to lower toxicity. The matches are shorter so if you botch things up the experience will be over soon. I usually take forever to try out a new champion or step outside my comfort zone because the idea of potentially wasting an hour is a significant obstacle. It also carries the threat of other people being furious about you wasting their time. 

Defensive tower changes also mean that you don't get stuck trying to end a game. The respawn timer tweaks mean there's less downtime and thus fewer opportunities to get bored, or to be significantly absent from fights in a way that your team can feel let down by a careless death.

That doesn't mean stakes have vanished entirely. In one match I played, an Anti-Mage who had been doing sterling work needed to leave. Three of the remaining four of us were pretty chill about it and one person was hell-bent on reporting them for the abandon. I mean, I get that it's frustrating to have wasted time and we probably lost the game based on that sudden absence. But it was nice that most people on the team were typing variants of "it's fine—it's only Turbo mode" into chat instead of having a big old barney.

Dota 2 has had various forms of practice mode for a while. There's a sort of singleplayer tutorial thing where a parrot teaches a dwarf with a gun some basic principles; there are a bunch of custom game modes which let you get practice last-hitting creeps and things like that; there's a third-party thing which lets you practice the typed combos which produce the ten Invoker spells; there's a demo hero mode which lets you set your hero level, toggle invulnerability, experiment with builds and so on in an isolated mid lane scenario. None of those feel sufficiently like a real game to help ease you into playing "real" Dota matches. 

Turbo mode tends to head to clown town after about 10 minutes —for me it's the point at which I've earned more gold than I would ever normally do, bought all my support items and am eyeing up a casual Mjollnir—but before it does you still get a bit of the laning experience. You still do some warding or some ambushing. You still need to figure out pathways around the jungle, or guard against being jumped by a suddenly invisible enemy team. You still need to actually get to grips with your character's abilities. It's just that you're a kazillion times less likely to get abuse for not knowing that stuff perfectly. 

With destination clown town in mind it's not really a place where you'll learn late game strategies or how to break into a foe's base (although a couple of the changes in 7.07 might help with the latter anyway). But it's far more of a helpful playground for a Dota experience than the previous options, and far more likely to be populated given it's an official game mode rather than something hidden within custom games. 

I stopped playing Dota 2 a fair while ago because I'd ossified into a specific type of support role and the game didn't really support breaking out of that in a fun way. Since 7.07 I've actually been playing and—perhaps more surprising given previous attempts to return—genuinely having fun.

Months of Dota 2 fans going stir crazy for a new patch finally came to an end this week. The game's newest major patch, which comes around this time every year, is finally here to shake up Dota 2 with new items, new ability changes, and even two new heroes in the form of Dark Willow and Pangolier.

As with any big Dota patch, the Dueling Fates update will alter or break most of the winning strategies that have defined the game's current meta. We likely won't won't understand just how vital these changes are for weeks to come—especially regarding the two new heroes. The overriding motivations of the patch, however, seem clear: to make Dota more inviting to new players and to encourage more action at every stage of the game.

The first pillar of the patch is obvious. "Turbo Mode" is a new game-type that increases XP and gold gains, while letting players buy items anywhere on the map. Valve's self-professed goal with the mode is to cut match times (and the accompanying emotional investment) for new players. That seems obvious, but it's just the flashiest accessibility change among many in Dueling Fates.

Character guides are also easier to access in-game, I noticed some new menu tooltips after starting my first game on the patch, and a rotating selection of 10 daily heroes receive bonus items just for being selected. Together these seem like a solid second step for theoretical new Dota 2 players who've cut their teeth on Turbo Mode.

For old and new players alike, Dueling Fates also generally encourages more fighting. That's been a common thread among previous patches and it makes sense. Player-to-player combat is where Dota's mechanical interactions are at their most dynamic—their most exciting to watch and perform. You rarely see Lifestealer, a character that can climb into and explode out of allies, hop inside map-wide sprinter Spirit Breaker just to harvest gold from NPC creeps, after all.

There should be a lot more opportunities for skirmishes now. Jungling has been severely nerfed with the removal of Iron Talon—one of the most essential tools for killing hearty jungle creeps. Meanwhile, lane creeps actually provide more XP and gold than before. So there's greater incentive for opposing players to dance around each other in-lane, harvesting creep waves and haranguing each other out of position.

Bounty runes (which periodically provide free gold and XP) have also shifted to more contestable locations. That means junglers can no longer offhandedly snag the golden shards between creep culls. It also likely means we'll see more fights around the runes, as players try to steal them.

While it's common for Valve to make map changes and add items, Dueling Fates is ostensibly the first patch to remove equipment entirely. The loss of Iron Talon seems like a clear message from Valve that they want players out of the jungles and closer to where things get ugly.

Speaking of items, this update includes a few new ones, too. One of the most interesting of which is Meteor Hammer. The blue basher summons great big fireballs after a three-second cast time. That's not very interesting on its own, but the kicker is that it damages buildings—making it the first item with a spell that can. Heroes like Pugna, Techies, and Jakiro have always been able to siege buildings indirectly that way, but an item is much more versatile in that anyone can carry it. 

Meteor Hammer is also just the tip of a very siege-centric iceberg. Bases no longer sport shrines, for instance, meaning defending players can't periodically heal while defending their own high ground. Extra hard-hitting siege creeps now spawn 10 minutes earlier than before—not to mention they can be made invulnerable, thanks to map-wide defensive glyphs now affecting creeps as well as buildings. And tier four towers, which defend the all-important ancients in Defense of the Ancients, no longer regenerate health.

That's all a shame if you happen to be losing, but whichever team has the momentum is now more likely to keep it. It was tremendously easy to win fights for most of a one-hour match in the previous meta, only to collide into protracted battles outside the opposing team's doorstep. Even if you didn't lose, it usually meant a long, dull game of chicken where neither team wanted to make the first move. So straightforward fighting is the order of the day yet again.

To help you with that, every single hero has different match-permanent talent options, plus total ability reworks for six existing characters. Talents already drastically altered Dota 2 when they were first introduced in 2016's The New Journey update. Now the developers are fine-tuning them further in ways that totally overhaul certain heroes' roles. The longtime spellcaster Bane, for example, seems like he might find new life as a physical damage character thanks to a talent that lets him drain it from enemy heroes.

Between those hero changes and the renewed emphasis on player-to-player to combat, it seems like Valve has a definite direction in mind for Dota 2—one that puts the complex game's best features forward more frequently. Meanwhile, Turbo Mode and more accessible guides mean this is happening at a time when the company is courting more new players than ever. If Dueling Fates succeeds in making the game more exciting more frequently, as appears to be the goal, it really does seem like the perfect time for those new players to hop aboard.

The patch notes for the Dota 2 7.07 update, "Dueling Fates," fully reveals the new Pangolier and Dark Willow heroes who were teased back in August. The update will also make a big change to the matchmaking rating system, updates the Ability Draft, adds a new Dota Turbo game mode and Ping Wheel functionality, and changes the Guide System to make it more accessible and useful. 

Donté Panlin, the Pangolier, is a dashing, Puss in Boots-style swordsman, but instead of a cat he's a sort of anthropomorphic pangolin, with natural scales that provide a handy, always-on defense. "There is no monster he won't slay," Valve said. "No creature he won’t woo. No tyrant he won’t stand against. And no noble immune to his silver tongue." 

The Dark Willow Mireska Sunbreeze, the daughter of a fae merchant, also appears to be a mischievous sort, but of a much darker bent: "While she was quite adept at navigating the etiquette, unspoken laws, and social rituals that permeated every element of her life, she found the whole thing rather boring. So, Mireska did what most rebellious children do: burn down her family estate and set off with her pet wisp Jex to live the life of a wandering grifter." 

To ensure that the matchmaking rating [MMR] system is "recent and accurate" for everyone, MMR for both ranked and unranked players will now work on a six-month seasonal system, the first of which will begin in two weeks. Players will be given a profile medal for each season based on their peak skill during that season, which will be displayed, along with their previous seasonal medal, to all players before each match. 

"At the start of each season all players will recalibrate MMR, seeded by their previous season’s MMR," Valve explained. "Your current historical preseason MMR value will be recorded and selectable in your profile, and ranked players will continue to be able to track their current seasonal MMR value." 

Other changes of note: Turbo Mode keeps the same game rules as All Pick but grants more gold and experience to heroes, weakens defensive towers, and reduces respawn time, all of which will simplify the process of trying out new heroes and strategies; the Ability Draft has been given a new interface; the Guide system is more easily accessible; and new functionality has been added to the Ping Wheel. We'll have a more in-depth analysis of everything that's going on here for you soon, and in the meantime you can dive into the patch notes yourself at dota2.com.

Update: The post originally indicated that the Dueling Fates update was live today, but it will not actually be out until November 1.

It was the middle of a Monday afternoon when Marco Cuesta, co-founder of the blockchain esports platform FirstBlood, gave me a call. After plenty of jargon and esports talk had been thrown around, Cuesta's vision for FirstBlood was clear: The future of esports, he says, is one where high-quality competition and rewards systems are made available to everyone, not just professional gamers, and FirstBlood is going to help bridge that gap. But whether or not blockchain technology and cryptocurrency will really help usher in this new era is not so clear.

What is blockchain, and how can esports benefit from it? 

Blockchain is basically a decentralized network that's powered by peer-to-peer communications and transactions. If you're a fan of HBO's Silicon Valley, think of what Richard Hendricks was trying to accomplish with a decentralized internet—it's similar, but different. Instead of having companies maintain everything on a few servers, entire groups of people can interact with each other on a "block" that records data and transactions specifically for those people. Once the interactions are complete, the data is recorded for as long as the network exists, and the next "block" on the "chain" is created after a new set of interactions begins. You can think of each block as a unique page in an ongoing ledger.

A big draw of blockchain is the use of encrypted currency, or "cryptocurrency". This is a type of digital currency that's usually invented by a company or organization for its customers or users. What makes cryptocurrency secure is a process called "mining". As defined by Digital Trends, "Mining uses algorithms to go through each transaction, encrypt the cryptocurrency, and add it to a digital ledger, essentially verifying it and cementing its position online." The currency is visible to everyone on a specific block, so it's virtually impossible to counterfeit. 

Esports and blockchain intersect in uncharted and untested waters. While the benefits of this relationship need time to fully manifest, there are a couple of topics we can discuss with some certainty right now. The first is security. Blockchain-based platforms aren't vulnerable to DDoS attacks, which are annoying to users and can cost companies a ton of money to clear up. Since blockchain replaces centralized servers with distributed systems of thousands of nodes, there's no single target for a DDoS attacker to hit.

The second is more pertinent to esports: the need for better scoring systems. Nothing's worse than losing a match due to lag or some other anomaly that was either out of your control, or abused by your opponent. One way that FirstBlood takes advantage of blockchain is by offering a "juror" system that allows people to review the results of a match if they're disputed, and adjust the outcomes accordingly. 

So what is FirstBlood?

In the simplest of explanations, FirstBlood is an app that syncs up with your Steam account, allowing you to compete against other players on a ladder for in-game rewards. Only Dota 2 is supported right now, but more games will be added down the road. Once the competition window is live, FirstBlood tells competitors which in-game custom lobby to join. They risk tokens (FirstBlood cryptocurrency) on themselves, play the match, and the winner walks away with the tokens. The more you win, the more you can compete, and the leaders win items that have real monetary value. It's still in beta right now, and while I can tell you that the ladder rankings have been fluctuating, FirstBlood could not provide user numbers at the time this article was published.

FirstBlood also wants to break more into the professional level of esports. The company already has its feet wet in that regard with Dota 2 thanks to BITS (Blood in the Streets) EU, a tournament the company hosted back in June. Some big names including Team Singularity, Danish Bears, and Gambit Esports fought for their piece of a $5,000 prize pool in front of Twitch audiences that capped at about 3,500 viewers per match. While these numbers aren't a whole lot to write home about, if nothing else, it tells us that blockchain is up to the challenge of hosting significant events down the road. BITS Americas is currently being planned for next month in early November.

Most recently, and perhaps most significantly, FirstBlood partnered with the China General Administration of Sport to host the China University Esports League (CUEL), in which players from thousands of universities compete in each year. If successful, it could be a very big step for the integration of blockchain technology into the esports industry. 

Though these tournaments and partnerships are great for blockchain, it's still a very new and unproven technology in the gaming world. Even in the business world, where blockchain is most popular, analysts suggest that companies be wary of how they utilize this technology.

"Blockchain won't be a competitive differentiator," according to an article by Forbes. "It's an eventual commodity function that will be embedded in every organization's processes where it's needed most. The differentiation will be in how companies use blockchain for competitive advantage." 

The burden on blockchain esports platforms to establish what that competitive advantage is seems hefty. Think about a game like Overwatch for a minute. There's already a built-in ladder, as well as a reward system that's easy to engage with. It's simple, you don't need to constantly win to earn rewards, and your rolling stats are saved to your player profile after you're done playing a match. Blizzard even uses the regional Skill Rating system as a measure of one's worth to Overwatch esports. This isn't unique to Overwatch, either. It would seem as though the highest skilled players would prefer to stick with the in-game ladder for practical and professional reasons rather than compete on another platform, and casual gamers wouldn't have the need for anything beyond what the game already gives them.

There are quite a few possibilities for blockchain in esports, but the real question is whether or not the technology is in a unique position to help the esports industry evolve. There are plenty of companies out there that have some sort of technology aimed at improving or advancing competitive gaming. Some of them tweak latency, some of them have special products, and some even track your stats to give you a tailored path to improvement. Most, if not all, even host their own tournaments with the help of various sponsors. The addition of cryptocurrency is a nice touch if you're into that sort of reward system, but it's difficult to say whether or not the enhanced security and other amenities of blockchain will have a meaningful impact on esports in the long run.

The fact remains that the future of esports is one where the professional product exists alongside similar experiences for players and fans of all levels. In a sense, as certain esports leagues begin to adopt franchised structures to help pull the industry into local ecosystems, other evolutions need to occur at the casual level to propel esports to a visible space within mainstream culture. It may or may not be blockchain that brings about that change, but companies like FirstBlood are ensuring that progress never stops.

Valve’s been tormenting Dota 2 players for a while now. The 7.07 update, The Dueling Fates, was coming, but when? And what would it bring with it? There were teasers, sure, but not much solid information. Lost and confused, players started wandering the streets, grabbing strangers and demanding to know when The Dueling Fates was coming out. The strangers didn’t know. 

But now we all do! Finally, Valve has announced the release date for the big update, and it’s soon: November 1. Now everyone can just relax. 

We still don’t know much about it, mind. Two new heroes are on their way, however, so that should shake things up. 

Everything will be revealed soon enough, however, as we can expect the patch notes before November.