DoTA 2 Surpasses 1 Million Concurrent Players

[Steven Bogos]

DoTA 2 Surpasses 1 Million Concurrent Players

DoTA 2 makes up approximately 1/8th of all traffic on Steam.

We all know that DoTA 2 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/dota%202?os=dota+2], Valve's ambitious take on the MOBA genre, is incredibly popular, but now it has broken a milestone worthy of a headline. This weekend, DoTA 2 finally broke the 1 million mark for concurrent players, being the first Steam game to do so. To put things into perspective, Steam peaks at around 8 million concurrent players, meaning that DoTA 2 makes up roughly 1/8th of all Steam traffic. Impressive, considering that there are thousands of titles on the service.

Of course, despite this milestone, DoTA 2 still remains far behind genre leader League of Legends, which boasts anywhere from five to seven million concurrent players [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/131716-League-of-Legends-Daily-Audience-Doubled-in-2013].

For some additional info, the number two game on Steam right now is Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which sits at around 420,000 concurrent players. It is followed, quite distantly, by Team Fortress 2 at 88,000 players, and then Football Manager 2015 - the highest ranking non-Valve game - at 71,000.

DoTA 2 has very quickly proven itself to be Valve's most profitable asset, and its esports scene is growing at a phenomenal rate [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/features/12272-Dota-2-s-The-Invitational-is-Harder-to-Love-Than-The-World-Cup]. While I love DoTA 2 as much as the next guy, I sort of wish that it wasn't as popular as it is, so Valve would be forced to work on... other titles. You know. Titles that have a "3" in them...

Source: Steam [http://store.steampowered.com/stats/]

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[RJ 17]

I sort of wish that it wasn't as popular as it is, so Valve would be forced to work on... other titles. You know. Titles that have a "3" in them...

Ahhhh, I know exactly what game you're hoping they start working on...

Spoiler: The game that EVERYONE'S been waiting YEARS for...

Team Fortress 3. =3

 

[Worgen]

How ironic that I finally just uninstalled it after having played like 2 games like 2 years ago.

 

[Wan Shi Tong]

I think a huge reason that we had 1 million concurrent players is because of the new and incredibly idiotic way volvo decided to host the new event.

There's a special event going on in dota right now that you can only play at certain times during the day, the mode is locked and there is a timer counting down to the next time everyone can play it. The servers however, are already crappy enough on any average day, so the timer counting down might as well be labeled, "Prepare for server crash in".

As much as I love dota, I would predict that the number of concurrent players goes back to normal after this event, since it specifically encourages all of the players to log on at the same time.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

It's the Chinese new year event going on that's giving it such high traffic at the moment. Although personally I'm keeping my distance from the game for a little while until this blows over, the servers are in overdrive at the moment, and can't handle it particularly well.

Plus the event is apparently pay to win, so I've lost interest in Dota 2 for now. Unsurprisingly I'm playing a fair bit of CSGO to compensate.

 

[WendelI]

also that aforementioned event has caused the most rage ive ever seen come out of a dota game in YEARS. if you dont wanna get yelled at for buying one potion instead of tow, stay away!

 

[Xan Krieger]

I sort of wish that it wasn't as popular as it is, so Valve would be forced to work on... other titles. You know. Titles that have a "3" in them...

Ahhhh, I know exactly what game you're hoping they start working on...

Spoiler: The game that EVERYONE'S been waiting YEARS for...

Team Fortress 3. =3

No he means something good like Portal 3, the only Valve series I consider good.

OT: Never played it, what does DOTA mean?

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

It's the Chinese new year event going on that's giving it such high traffic at the moment. Although personally I'm keeping my distance from the game for a little while until this blows over, the servers are in overdrive at the moment, and can't handle it particularly well.

Plus the event is apparently pay to win, so I've lost interest in Dota 2 for now. Unsurprisingly I'm playing a fair bit of CSGO to compensate.

I agree with both points. I really have no idea why Valve decided to throw the whole "nothing that has any effect on the gameplay is behind a paywall" thing out the window.

Well, actually that's not 100% true, since I do recall you could purchase points to upgrade your hero in last year's New Bloom, but at least that was co-op.

 

[milijanko]

I just find it funny to imagine all the googly eyes in EA, Ubisoft, MS, Sony,... when this kind of numbers come up for DOTA, LoL, WoT,... whatever. Since not one of their AAAAAAAA++++++ games can reach this kind of player numbers and profits. Earning more and more money for the same game without even sticking a new number next to the name every November is probably how they imagine heaven.

Oh, and I just realized that according to bf#stats.com, CS:GO has more players than BF3 and BF4 on all the platforms combined. I wonder if it is the same with other big shooters.

 

[gonenow]

Nice.
So 6-7 million more players to reach League of Legends.
And 2-2.5 million more to reach World of Tanks... a game that The Escapist for some *stupid* reason forgets it exists. But Escapist doesnt forget the faar less popular DOTA 2

The escapist hardly reports on Dota 2 compared to League of Legends / Smite / Heroes of the storm. They generally report what they play which is generally why they are behind when it comes to certain game news.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

This is how you make a f2p game. No need to nickle and dime your audience. Give them a fun and addictive game, let them make stuff for their game and let them regulate the economy then take your humble cut. Valve is rolling in the dough thanks to a pretty much perfect f2p business policy. I don't play DOTA 2 though, because I hate MOBA. But no one can deny their success.

 

[AstaresPanda]

Ive noticed alot of my old Dawn of War 2 battle brothers have pretty much jumped ship to DoTa2, i just cant get into it. Pretty amazing numbers thou dam.

 

[War_Dyn27]

This is how you make a f2p game. No need to nickle and dime your audience. Give them a fun and addictive game, let them make stuff for their game and let them regulate the economy then take your humble cut. Valve is rolling in the dough thanks to a pretty much perfect f2p business policy. I don't play DOTA 2 though, because I hate MOBA. But no one can deny their success.

Unfortunatly this event is a bit 'nickel and dimey,' but really paying for upgrade points to help win the event is basically a roundabout way of buying the random cosmetics you get if you win as it has no bearing on the rest of the game.

 

[Synthetica]

You mean DoTA 3 right? It must be DoTA 3.

 

[Las7]

I don't care too much about the event, Valve should be able to capitalize if people choose to spend money on events like this and hats. I've certainly helped by buying that Compendium 2014 - what I don't like is the fact that the even is poorly designed. If Valve had more servers dedicated to running the game during the mode than it wouldn't be a problem. I don't plan on playing the special mode so having it negatively impact me is a downer. Just proves that all companies make mistakes and sadly Valve has made plenty of those for as long as I've played Dota 2.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

To be fair its only because they made a stupid event that means everyone has to be on in the same 10 minutes.
And for the first few days that meant killing the servers faster than a rock to the processor. If servers have processors.

And I hear league likes to lie about their numbers. No source on that, or leagues numbers though.

 

[DocJ]

OT: Never played it, what does DOTA mean?

It means Defence of the Ancients. It has one of the worst communities in MOBA's thanks to Russians who can't stay on their own dedicated Russian servers and instead have to come to ours and ruin things. Yet I still find it fun to play. Somehow. I don't know, what am I doing with my life?

 

[Xan Krieger]

OT: Never played it, what does DOTA mean?

It means Defence of the Ancients. It has one of the worst communities in MOBA's thanks to Russians who can't stay on their own dedicated Russian servers and instead have to come to ours and ruin things. Yet I still find it fun to play. Somehow. I don't know, what am I doing with my life?

Sounds a lot like World of Tanks actually (and to a lesser extent World of Warplanes because even the russians realized that game was awful).