Valve are hosting a $1 million tournament for the upcoming DotA 2 at Gamecom this year – which definitely made me blink rapidly in disbelief – but now we’ve just heard that Chinese businessman, Sicong Wang, has just acquired one of the top DotA teams for a ludicrous $6 million dollars!
The team in question is Catostrophic Cruel Memories, aka CCM, who play Starcraft, DotA and Warcraft 3.
So, competitive gaming. Serious business. The weekend just passed was testament to the increasing growth of pro gaming as a sport and a business enterprise as both EVO and MLG ran record breaking events, in terms of user engagement.
Valve’s DotA 2 prize pool appears to be confirmation that Valve are looking to take the DotA brand to the competitive community in a very big way, and this $6 million acquisition appears to be proof that the competitive community is taking this game very seriously indeed.
Serious Biz: DotA Team Bought For $6m [RPS]
Thanks to Harli for letting me know!
Duncan
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 11:22 AMah Furion, in all his low poly glory.
Scratch around and find us some new screenshots of Dota 2 Mark. Or find out the burning question that will have many players jumping ship.
Will there be local servers?!
Mic
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 4:13 PMAs far as I’m aware, the only images of DotA2 are 4 pieces of art for Lina, Morphling, Blood Seeker and Drow Ranger. (As seen on the Dota 2 Blog: http://blog.dota2.com/2010/11/welcome-to-dota-2-blog/)
Sam
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 11:28 AMI should never have left that dota clan…. could have made something of myself instead of slaving away at this useless university degree, why did I listen to my parents why!?
SOX
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 11:45 AMDota 2, my body is ready.
Harli
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 11:50 AMNo problems! Seeing news like this makes me get all tingly.
Luke
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 11:55 AMSeriously Valve… Screw DoTA, give us what 90% gamers are patiently waiting for Half Life 2: Episode 3.
ThrashTitan
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 2:30 PMThey cant. The DOTA2 prize pool was their EP3 budget.
706
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 11:59 AMSounds like Valve is throwing a lot of money at DotA2 in the hopes of it gaining popularity. I am a little uneasy about this game. I love probably everything Valve has done but hearing about the development difficulties on this game has me cautious. There is also now multiple DotA clones that aren’t too bad, with some very dogmatic fans. I’m not sure if they will necessarily swap over to this new one.
With the amount of effort going into DotA 2 I feel like anything less than a runaway success will be deemed a failure.
Cooper
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 11:41 PMThere are 2 dota clones i can think of. 1 (LoL) has gradually strayed further and further from dota to the point of being pretty much nothing like it and terrible and the other (HoN) has a large group of people who will probably switch over the instant dota 2 is out because they just hate the developers. The only real threat is if people are too cheap to buy the game and go with the f2p options
Ziocahn
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 12:06 PM@706
I would say 90% of the HON will buy DOTA2 as soon as its out or at least somewhere in its lifespan.
I know a couple of League players who are anxiously awaiting it as well.
It’s got enough hype now for at least a successful launch when its out.
Karachi King
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 12:51 PMSkimming over this article, I read the Chinese businessman’s name as “Silicon Wang”…
Matt
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 1:41 PMwait $6 million and the prize is $1 million, is he going to exploit them for adverts and merchandising if they win?
ThrashTitan
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 2:31 PMDAMN ALL THE DOTA LOL AND HONS.
I WANT WARCRAFT 4.
Supreme
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 4:18 PMNo shiiit man. Fuck WoW off, gimmie WC4 least that had a decent storyline not like WoW which has gone down the drain in terms of storyline since WC3′s storyline ended.
dainbramage
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 9:20 PMIs the warcraft storyline even salvageable? I think blizzard would have to pull a “wow was an alternative universe guys” and continue it from the end of TFT or something.
SOX
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 3:04 PMSeriously considering getting some of my mates together on the 20th to drink and watch the finals..
phaded
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 3:05 PMIt’s a rich billionaire’s son trying to create a scene
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=250937
$6 million is chump change to this guy, allegedly Sicong’s father recently sponsored a chinese football league for $40+ million
Keki
Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 7:30 PMI hope Dota2 has an ELO rating system. I hate playing with bads.