No, the real problem is that e-sports as a whole is grossly unprofitable and not sustainable. Fine for the company that owns the game, as it’s a loss leader, not great for every 3rd party or investor that bleeds money.

Look at the LCS and how tightly managed and subsidized (by both VC money and Riot themselves) it was. Complete shit show.

I feel the same, but for a much more selfish reason :P

TI will be the only DOTA LAN (except maybe one in Ontario) that I’ll ever attend because of those Juicy Crimson Witness Treasures.

MMR Inflation > Skill inflation, at least in the upper brackets. A better answer is that after not playing for 2 years, it’s a combination of both rustiness + playing in different circumstances (different map, different meta heroes, lots of things to re-learn).

I would take people’s testimonies saying the opposite with a grain of salt, since there’s an incentive to jerk themselves off and think them being 3k now = 5-6k a few years back.

Yeah I watched the replay just now - I was wondering how you over came a mid-game axe blink 1 v 5 - especially if Axe ever got his shard. I got my answer ~12 minutes in watching Axe break his items and afk jungle with boots and rushing a midas.

Only shame is that your team also got +mmr from this.

Ngl - idk how you did it as a Broodmother. in an immortal game. All 3 of their cores are pretty good vs Brood.

He pretty much singlehandedly ruined game 2 for Wbg.

Meepo vs Sven and Core ET. Sounds fucking miserable, GL to Yuma.

I hope to god SR do well when they start playing, because if Nouns starts doing well too, the RTZ + Bulba shit talk is going to new peaks.

Is block of cheese still bugged to give the shield regen even after player damage? If so, it might’ve unironically won them the game.

Definitely…pretty much like a Perma Timber Aghs.

A few notes.

1. At this point, unless there’s a significant change in the eco-system, the only way to sustainably monetize the e-sports eco-system is skins. E-sports as a a whole act as a loss leader to introduce users to the game/motivate the selling of skins (ie: I see pro player with cool gear, I want cool gear). Unless there’s some fundamental shift in the consumer base attitude (ie: being willing to pay to watch esports content), e-sports will not be profitable to those running the tournaments nor those running teams. If League and their hundreds of millions of burned VC money can’t make it work, it’s probably not possible. That said, the scene should be safe for now - the people running teams or tournaments generally don’t run teams with direct profits in mind (ie: Shopify Rebellion for marketing/awareness for Shopify, Saudi e-sportswashing, etc). Being able to sell skins related to your tournament or having team skins sold could go a long way for grassroots though - “small operators” like BTS or orgless stacks performing well (a DOTA equivalent of CS’s Bad News Eagles).

2. The problem with this implementation that is there’s no like for like in DOTA compared to CS stickers. In CS, stickers are desirable as an “investment” - with people obsessed with holding on to the next IBP/Titan holo equivalents - as well as have a significant aesthetic purpose on their own. 3rd parties aren’t allowed to do Compendiums anymore (guessing too much work from Valve’s side to implement?), Dota 2 stickers are a joke and supporter pack content is a joke - the majority of players don’t give a shit about voicelines, stickers, and sprays. A sticker would need to give some kind of chromatic or particle effect for anyone to give a shit. We need to find what that equivalent in DOTA is before anything meaningful can happen.

3. Even if we were to allow orgs/TO’s to create cosmetic content on their end to sell - who would make it? Pretty sure the last time this was a thing, most artists had gone on the record saying it wasn’t worth it for them.

Depends on your time horizon and opp cost w. what you’ll do with the funds you get. It will go lower in the next few months, but it will go up in longer term assuming DOTA is still alive and healthy then.