Valve’s Chinese New Year Event & Volvo

Dota players from all around the world are very mad because Valve messed up its feature event for Dota 2 once again. This first happened when Valve did not announce its Diretide Halloween event in 2013. Players rioted all over the internet including President Obama and Volvo’s Facebook pages. The players are doing the same thing now but this time they are really upset because Valve created an event in which the players are calling P2W (Pay to Win.)

https://www.facebook.com/Volvo

https://www.facebook.com/Volvo

The event works by adding two beasts for each side of the map, one for the radiant and one for the dire. Players can make their beasts very strong by purchasing event points. This is where the pay to win part comes in. However, that is not the only problem with this event. Even though players are spending money, they do not get to play the event a whole lot because Valve decided to only make it available only once every couple of hours. Then after waiting and waiting you get placed in a queue because otherwise the servers would crash. Also when the event is available, players cannot play the usual Dota matches because they are also put in a queue.

So we are still waiting for a word from Valve about this event. Fan-boys on Reddit are very upset that their favorite game company did this and they are very optimistic that Valve will apologize about the directions in which this event headed at. I personally hope that Valve learns from its mistake and not follow other company’s footsteps in future events.

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2 Responses to Valve’s Chinese New Year Event & Volvo

  1. ajw5459 says:

    The pay to win model of gaming is a trap that game makers need to be very careful with. We as gamers need to understand that while game companies want us to have a good experience, they also need to make a profit in order to keep giving us what we want. Many students in this class hope to one day make games for a living, but those of us playing the games often forget the “for a living” part. There are examples of allowing players to purchase unlocks that don’t affect others. For example, if a player wanted to purchase all of the guns in a first person shooter instead of working to unlock them all, they may not gain an advantage over other players who have not unlocked these guns if the game is well balanced. Many would demonize this stance as unfair, but the fact is that some players do not have the time required to earn these perks through sheer man-hours but still want to enjoy the full experience of the game. Here is a way that game companies can design their games for two distinct audiences, ensuring that everyone has the experience they have time for, and allowing them to make a larger profit from the group they are boosting. Many game makers confuse this type of boosting with the pay to win model. Games that allow users to pay for things such as increased health, power, or speed destroy the balance that is so carefully built into most games. This not only shows a lack of understanding of fundamentals of game design, but also a lack of respect of their customers. As I said above, we cannot vilify game companies for trying to increase their profits, but when they pull stunts like pay to win they stop giving us what they promised, which is a fun and level playing field.

  2. Bart Pursel says:

    I rarely get to play dota these days, but I did see this game mode advertised in one of the blog post updates at the dota2 blog. I also don’t like the direction this is going (getting ability points for purchases in the valve store, that directly benefit you and your team in this game mode).

    I’m assuming Valve’s response (at least one of them) will be “It’s not ranked match making, this has no impact on your ranking at all. It’s just for fun!” I don’t think that matters much, as people don’t like to be put on uneven footing in a competitive game like DOTA2, regardless of the game mode.

    As an aside…I have no understanding of why Valve fans are posting on the volvo facebook page? Obviously I’m missing something…

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