Enter the Thunderdome:
A History of MOBAs
An Introduction: What Defines a MOBA
MOBA stands for Multiplayer Online Battlefield Arena. It involves parties from different teams competing against each other for victory, in the form of base destruction. Teams consist of 2 or more players with each player controlling a single character that has multiple skills/abilities that should, ideally, complement the team. The battlefield has a series of paths (often referred to as lanes) navigated by AI units that are spawned at periodic intervals. Lanes also usually have a set number of structures that need to be destroyed/controlled to progress the game further. Players can also purchase items from gold earned in-game that will make their character stronger by complementing their specific abilities, strengths, and weaknesses.
This genre is fairly new, but already there is a very strong competitive following, and international competitions of this genre are frequent with fairly hefty prize pools. This is in part due to the highly competitive and high skill level of the game. These competitions are held at the end of each in-game season and are viewed by thousands of people worldwide.
This genre is fairly new, but already there is a very strong competitive following, and international competitions of this genre are frequent with fairly hefty prize pools. This is in part due to the highly competitive and high skill level of the game. These competitions are held at the end of each in-game season and are viewed by thousands of people worldwide.
History of the Genre
The MOBA genre can be traced back to a custom map made for the game StarCraft called Aeon of Strife. StarCraft was in itself a Real Time Strategy Game, but a custom map was made that removed the base building and resource gathering aspect and just gave the player a group of powerful units. Several players would take control of a unit of their choice and attack the opposing team which was controlled by an AI opponent. Both teams are also supported by continuously generated waves of computer-controlled units. The goal of the map was simply to destroy the singular structure controlled by the enemy. This game style is the defining type of play that makes the MOBA genre its own specific and easily recognizable genre and is the template for every game that came after.
The next iteration of the MOBA genre to be released was the hugely popular Defense of the Ancients (or DOTA).
Defense of the Ancient was originally created by an individual known only by his pseudonym "Eul", this was a custom map made by fans of Aeon of Strife for the new Blizzard game WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos and was released in 2003. By using the WarCraft engine, the game was able to be improved significantly. The units the player controlled could now be leveled up as the game progressed, unlocking new abilities and making the units stronger, and they could also now buy items that make the player stronger.
Eul actively maintained the mod up until the release of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Development ceased and was not developed further for The Frozen Throne and instead made the mod open source before officially shutting down development.
After Eul’s abandonment of the project, this led to the community making hundreds of DOTA clones, each with their own unique heros and items. many different variations of DotA exist but the most popular where
· DotA Darkness Falls
· DotA Chaos
· DotA All-Stars
One person, under the name of Meian, sorted through the various DOTA maps and chose the best champions to merge all into the one map called DOTA All Stars. Once he had done this and released it to the public,
Steve Feak started to refine DOTA Allstars by balancing out the champions and making the game more fun and giving a level playing field. This reworking and refining of the map gave players hours of playtime, by choosing different characters they play, picking different items each game, players could make the game their own and propel themselves to the top of the playing tier. Feak made the decision to change the player vs. AI dynamic to a player vs. player. This caused the size of the DOTA fanbase to explode, and Feak was forced to start bringing more people on to the project to help develop and refine the game. The game was given its first true recognition in 2005 when Blizzard held a DOTA All Stars tournament at its first BlizzCon, a convention held each year for everything Blizzard. The people responsible for DOTA All Stars soon began to feel that the map should be its own stand-alone game as it was soon becoming a full time job, and being inside someone else’s game, they were not given an opportunity to make a living off it. Feak ended up handing over control of DotA All-Stars to IceFrog and went on to become one of the lead designers for League of Legends.
Since its original release, DotA has come a feature at numerous worldwide tournaments like Activision Blizzard’s yearly BlizzCon, the Asian World Cyber Games, Cyberathlete Amateur as well as the CyberEvolution Leagues. The Valve Corporation officially announced on October 13, 2010 that they are developing a stand-alone sequel Dota 2, lead designer being the anonymous current developer of DotA Allstars, IceFrog. Dota 2 is scheduled to be released sometime in 2012 and is currently in the open Beta phase of development.
The next iteration of the MOBA genre to be released was the hugely popular Defense of the Ancients (or DOTA).
Defense of the Ancient was originally created by an individual known only by his pseudonym "Eul", this was a custom map made by fans of Aeon of Strife for the new Blizzard game WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos and was released in 2003. By using the WarCraft engine, the game was able to be improved significantly. The units the player controlled could now be leveled up as the game progressed, unlocking new abilities and making the units stronger, and they could also now buy items that make the player stronger.
Eul actively maintained the mod up until the release of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Development ceased and was not developed further for The Frozen Throne and instead made the mod open source before officially shutting down development.
After Eul’s abandonment of the project, this led to the community making hundreds of DOTA clones, each with their own unique heros and items. many different variations of DotA exist but the most popular where
· DotA Darkness Falls
· DotA Chaos
· DotA All-Stars
One person, under the name of Meian, sorted through the various DOTA maps and chose the best champions to merge all into the one map called DOTA All Stars. Once he had done this and released it to the public,
Steve Feak started to refine DOTA Allstars by balancing out the champions and making the game more fun and giving a level playing field. This reworking and refining of the map gave players hours of playtime, by choosing different characters they play, picking different items each game, players could make the game their own and propel themselves to the top of the playing tier. Feak made the decision to change the player vs. AI dynamic to a player vs. player. This caused the size of the DOTA fanbase to explode, and Feak was forced to start bringing more people on to the project to help develop and refine the game. The game was given its first true recognition in 2005 when Blizzard held a DOTA All Stars tournament at its first BlizzCon, a convention held each year for everything Blizzard. The people responsible for DOTA All Stars soon began to feel that the map should be its own stand-alone game as it was soon becoming a full time job, and being inside someone else’s game, they were not given an opportunity to make a living off it. Feak ended up handing over control of DotA All-Stars to IceFrog and went on to become one of the lead designers for League of Legends.
Since its original release, DotA has come a feature at numerous worldwide tournaments like Activision Blizzard’s yearly BlizzCon, the Asian World Cyber Games, Cyberathlete Amateur as well as the CyberEvolution Leagues. The Valve Corporation officially announced on October 13, 2010 that they are developing a stand-alone sequel Dota 2, lead designer being the anonymous current developer of DotA Allstars, IceFrog. Dota 2 is scheduled to be released sometime in 2012 and is currently in the open Beta phase of development.
A History of the Big Three
The current MOBA player base is mostly confined to three specific games, who can all trace theirs roots back to the original DOTA mod. These are League of Legends,Heroes of Newearth, and Defense of the Ancients 2.
League of Legends
League of Legends was created and developed by Riot Games and released on the 27th of October, 2009. Riot is an independent software developer that works solely on League of Legends and was founded by Brandon Beck and Mike Merrill. Feak and Steve Mescon (administrator for the DOTA fan base) worked with Riot to develop its own stand-alone game that was to be the spiritual successor of DOTA All Stars. The plan to create League of Legends was created "when a couple of very active DotA community members believed that the gameplay was so much fun and so innovative that it represented the spawning of a new genre and deserved to be its own professional game with significantly enhanced features and around-game services."[1] . Riot also decided to add a new level of player depth by adding a system of runes/masteries and summoner spells to the game which allows for greater customization of the player experience. Runes and masteries let the player add new strengths and passive abilities to the characters they play to make them perform better in game. Summoner spells are special abilities that can be activated at any time, similar to the abilities available to each unique character.
Since the initial game release, League of Legends has gone through many changes via regular patches. This has always included the addition of new champions and items as well as hot fixes to make the game more balanced and enjoyable. There have been several major changes to the game however, in the form of new maps and game modes. Twisted Treeline, a 3 player map was added on 30/3/2010. Automated Leaver Banning was added on 14/12/2010 in an attempt to deter people from leaving a game already in progress, as this greatly reduces the experience of everyone else in the game. AFK Detection was added on 19/1/2011, this was to stop people from going AFK in game, which had a similar result to the leavers. Co-Op verses AI was a new game mode added on 15/2/11 that allowed players to play against champions controlled by an AI. This allowed lower level players to practice the game and experienced players to practice new champions. The tribunal system was added on 24/5/2011. This system allowed players who were reported by others (for going afk, leaving or being a bad sportsman) to be judged by others in the community. People who were deemed to be repeat offenders or particularly bad/offensive players were faced with either a stern warning or permanent account deletion. On 26/9/2011 the new map, Dominion, was released. This is a 5v5 map where players compete to control points on the map that slowly eat away at the opposing teams score, until one team is left at 0 points and is declared the loser. Spectator mode was released on 27/2/2012. This allowed players to spectate the games of friends and/or professional players. The last major game update was released on 1/10/2012 with the introduction of the honor system. This allowed players to honor people from the game they had just played that were either particularly good, nice or helpful. The full timeline of patches and patch notes can be found at [2].
Since the initial game release, League of Legends has gone through many changes via regular patches. This has always included the addition of new champions and items as well as hot fixes to make the game more balanced and enjoyable. There have been several major changes to the game however, in the form of new maps and game modes. Twisted Treeline, a 3 player map was added on 30/3/2010. Automated Leaver Banning was added on 14/12/2010 in an attempt to deter people from leaving a game already in progress, as this greatly reduces the experience of everyone else in the game. AFK Detection was added on 19/1/2011, this was to stop people from going AFK in game, which had a similar result to the leavers. Co-Op verses AI was a new game mode added on 15/2/11 that allowed players to play against champions controlled by an AI. This allowed lower level players to practice the game and experienced players to practice new champions. The tribunal system was added on 24/5/2011. This system allowed players who were reported by others (for going afk, leaving or being a bad sportsman) to be judged by others in the community. People who were deemed to be repeat offenders or particularly bad/offensive players were faced with either a stern warning or permanent account deletion. On 26/9/2011 the new map, Dominion, was released. This is a 5v5 map where players compete to control points on the map that slowly eat away at the opposing teams score, until one team is left at 0 points and is declared the loser. Spectator mode was released on 27/2/2012. This allowed players to spectate the games of friends and/or professional players. The last major game update was released on 1/10/2012 with the introduction of the honor system. This allowed players to honor people from the game they had just played that were either particularly good, nice or helpful. The full timeline of patches and patch notes can be found at [2].
Heroes of Newerth
Heroes of Newerth is a MOBA developed by S2 games for Windows, Mac and Linux. It was officially released May 12 2010, Beta began in April 24 2009 and during its time in Beta over 3,000,000 unique accounts were registered.
The Open-Beta began on March 31 2010 and ran until the game was officially released.
The game was re-released as Heroes of Newerth 2.0 on the 13th of December 2010 and the new version included an ingame currency called coins to be used in the new ingame store, this was used to purchase vanity items for both the users account and heroes, coins were gained in small amounts after finishing a game, or could be purchased online. This new release also included a casual mode, the equivalent to the easy game mode in DoTA, a new user interface, a map editor, and a team matchmaking system.
The Game was re-released a second time on July 29 2011, this saw the game go to being free to play, any original account gained access to all heroes and the ability to purchase new heroes the week in which they were announced. All accounts created after this release had access to a rotation of 15 heroes a week, and additional heroes could be purchased with coins. These new accounts also only had access to the all pick mode, though they could purchase tokens to allow them to play other modes once per token.
On July 19, 2012 the game went completely free to play, all accounts now had full access to game modes and heroes, excluding early access heroes which still had to be bought.
The Open-Beta began on March 31 2010 and ran until the game was officially released.
The game was re-released as Heroes of Newerth 2.0 on the 13th of December 2010 and the new version included an ingame currency called coins to be used in the new ingame store, this was used to purchase vanity items for both the users account and heroes, coins were gained in small amounts after finishing a game, or could be purchased online. This new release also included a casual mode, the equivalent to the easy game mode in DoTA, a new user interface, a map editor, and a team matchmaking system.
The Game was re-released a second time on July 29 2011, this saw the game go to being free to play, any original account gained access to all heroes and the ability to purchase new heroes the week in which they were announced. All accounts created after this release had access to a rotation of 15 heroes a week, and additional heroes could be purchased with coins. These new accounts also only had access to the all pick mode, though they could purchase tokens to allow them to play other modes once per token.
On July 19, 2012 the game went completely free to play, all accounts now had full access to game modes and heroes, excluding early access heroes which still had to be bought.
DOTA 2
Dota 2 is scheduled to be released sometime in 2012 and is currently in the open Beta phase of development. As the sequel to Dota Allstars, the development cycle of Dota 2 has been concentrated primarily upon fully transferring the aspects of its predecessor to the Source engine, as well as building upon the core gameplay.
A Comparison of the Games
Game Elements
Each of these games is built around the core of the MOBA genre. In each of the games there is one main structure which must be destroyed to win, though destroying other structures within the opposing team's base can be advantageous. Defensive towers are placed in the lanes leading to the bases, as well as weak computer-controlled units which are periodically spawned at each base and which travel down pre-defined paths toward the opposing base. The players control a single powerful in-game unit generally called a hero. When a hero kills an enemy unit, it gains experience points which allow the hero to level up. When the heroes level up, they have the ability to learn spells, abilities or passive effects. When heroes die, they have to wait a designated time before respawning at their base, the time before respawn increases as they level up. Each player constantly receives a small amount of gold per second. A moderate amount of gold is rewarded for killing hostile computer-controlled units and large amounts are rewarded for killing enemy heroes. The amount of gold received from heroes varies depending on certain criteria. Players use the gold they gain to buy a variety of different items that range in price, stats and abilities.
These are the major similarities between these games, and it is simply what makes them part of the MOBA.
These are the major similarities between these games, and it is simply what makes them part of the MOBA.
Champion Classes
In terms of innovation between various hero classes in these games, there is not a great deal of variation in terms of heroes between the games. There are a large number that are based on heroes from DotA, while they might not look physically the same they share similar gameplay mechanics. For example Traxex the Drow Ranger from DotA is Ashe in LoL, Arachna in HoN and Dota 2 being essentially a remake of the first, Traxex is still Traxex. While some may argue that they are different, when broken down into stats and skills, they are essentially the same hero. And this continues on for most heroes with a few heroes in LoL and HoN being unique to their game. Even with this uniqueness of heroes the roles of the heroes is still the same, There are Tanks, who are built to take damage, burst heroes to deal large damage over a short period of time, support heroes, whom have abilities to help and assist other heroes, and Carry heroes, who are built to output a huge amount of constant damage. Though there is a long list of other roles, all three games have all of these roles in one form or another.
Business Models
League of Legends
League of Legends was released as both a free downloadable game and as a prepackaged game available from most game stores for a small fee that also came with a number of skins and special items. This kind of sales strategy has become the backbone of the League of Legends business model. The game itself is completely free to play and there are no detrimental effects of not paying a cent to play it. The store in the game has two different currencies that players can use to buy new characters to play and account items; these are IP (influence points) and RP (Riot points). IP is earned by playing the game as each game, whether the player wins or loses, which rewards the player with a certain amount of IP. RP is bought through micro transactions via credit card or similar method from the in game store. RP can also be bought from games retailers and some service stations in the form of prepaid cards, similar to mobile phone credit.
Heroes of Newerth
This games business model has changed with every new release of HoN. Originally HoN was a game in which the user pays once, and has the complete game with all content. On the release of HoN 2.0 this was still true, though users could use coins to buy vanity items for their account these coins could be purchased from S2 online, or earned via playing games of HoN. When HoN went free to play the only way for S2 to bring in profit was via the purchase of coins by users, because of this, they limited the number of available heroes to new accounts, and players had to purchase additional heroes with coins. After the final re-release, users no longer had to buy heroes, and the game now makes money solely through the use of coins to purchase vanity items and early access heroes.
DOTA 2
Dota is a freely available community made mod for WarCraft 3 and does not have any form of income. The only purchase necessary is WarCraft 3 and the expansion packs and none of the money from the sale of the game and or expansion pack ever sees the pocket of the developers of the mod.
Dota 2 is Free To Play to anyone and requires no purchase to start playing. All income is made through the Dota 2 store, in a similar fashion to the Team Fortress 2 micro transaction system. The items sold there range from purely cosmetic items to experience rate boost, but nothing that is deemed as pay to win and will let a player have an unfair advantage over others. While this may seem like a trivial exercise for the developer to take, it has proved to be a very good business practice to follow. There is always a constant cash flow coming in, and being F2P it allows for a lot more people to play the game and become potential sources of income that may have not played the game if it required a subscription or outright purchase.
Dota 2 is Free To Play to anyone and requires no purchase to start playing. All income is made through the Dota 2 store, in a similar fashion to the Team Fortress 2 micro transaction system. The items sold there range from purely cosmetic items to experience rate boost, but nothing that is deemed as pay to win and will let a player have an unfair advantage over others. While this may seem like a trivial exercise for the developer to take, it has proved to be a very good business practice to follow. There is always a constant cash flow coming in, and being F2P it allows for a lot more people to play the game and become potential sources of income that may have not played the game if it required a subscription or outright purchase.
The Importance of Free to Play
The Free to Play model used in this genre of game is very important. The MOBA genre is relatively new and there is a small pool of games to choose from, comparatively to other more well established genres, and this leads to a great deal of competition between games for players. League of Legends was originally F2P whereas HoN was not, and required an initial purchase of the game, but went F2P in order to compete with LoL’s player base. Dota 2 has followed a similar role and was day 1 F2P. However, even though these games are free to play, there will always be parts that need to be paid for that, while they don't influence the game in any way way other than cosmetically, store items are going to be bought by fans of the game.
Community
The Importance of Community
The MOBA game genre is heavily multiplayer orientated, without a community backing the game, the game will crumble into ruins. Dota did have AI bots available, so it was possible for players to essentially have a single player experience, but this would become monotonous over time. Lose the players, lose the game is essentially what the entire genre hinges on. Demigod the MOBA title by Gas Powered games, received generally favourable reviews, but lacks any form of community, at the time of writing, according to xfire.com there are 3 players online and the highest amount of hours for any day in the last month is 15hours [8]
Lack of Migration Between Games
There are a few reasons why there is little migration between titles. A majority of players will tend to form bonds and become friends with other players that they have met and played with in game and tend to frequently play matches together. And playing another game in the genre would more than likely mean no longer playing with friends unless they all switch games to continue playing together. While the next few points are valid, they do not hold true to DotA, only LoL, HoN and DotA 2. While purchased experience boosters are often only temporary and will expire after a period of time, cosmetic items do not, some are often ‘special edition’ skins that are no longer available and to migrate to another game would create this sense of losing the items that they have purchased. Game progression, to unlock heroes in these games requires various forms of points that have been earned through playing matches, or spending money to unlock the heroes. Creating an account and playing would mean that to play the heroes that you want would mean gathering enough experience or paying through a micro transaction to unlock the wanted heroes. It feels unnecessary when on the other game this has already been done. And since most of the titles discussed here are very similar in gameplay it seems like a pointless endeavor to take.
League of Legends
League of Legends has, by far, the largest and strongest community of any MOBA game, perhaps even any game released to date. From the latest infographic released by Riot Games, it shows that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, arguably one of the most popular games at the moment, has a peak number of concurrent players of 1.4 million, whereas League of Legends has a peak concurrent player number of 3 million. Another stat shows the cumulative total halo play hours since 2004 as 2+ billion, where League of Legends has a weekly average play hours of 1+ billion every month. [3]
As with every community that has become as large as the League of Legends one, some form of policing of errant players needs to be done. Riot has been making changes to the game to help monitor the community through the introduction of the Tribunal system, leaver buster, AFK detector, and the honor system. These measures had to be undertaken as the increasing number of players introduced the community to more and more bad eggs. Now, since the introduction of these systems, there are very few leavers, AFK players and people that intentionally throw the game due to poor sportsmanship. However, there will always be players that use excessive bad language or constantly verbally berate their team and the enemy. This problem will be harder to fix as reporting and judging through the tribunal system takes time and effort on the behalf of the community.
One of the most positive aspects of the League of Legends community however is the Summoner Showcase. This is a weekly video released by Riot that showcases some of the best fan art, cosplay, and associated user created things. This has encouraged the creation of many ingenious items and has really increased the level of involvement of the community and Riot.
As with every community that has become as large as the League of Legends one, some form of policing of errant players needs to be done. Riot has been making changes to the game to help monitor the community through the introduction of the Tribunal system, leaver buster, AFK detector, and the honor system. These measures had to be undertaken as the increasing number of players introduced the community to more and more bad eggs. Now, since the introduction of these systems, there are very few leavers, AFK players and people that intentionally throw the game due to poor sportsmanship. However, there will always be players that use excessive bad language or constantly verbally berate their team and the enemy. This problem will be harder to fix as reporting and judging through the tribunal system takes time and effort on the behalf of the community.
One of the most positive aspects of the League of Legends community however is the Summoner Showcase. This is a weekly video released by Riot that showcases some of the best fan art, cosplay, and associated user created things. This has encouraged the creation of many ingenious items and has really increased the level of involvement of the community and Riot.
Riot also holds many tournaments at the end of each in game season. They have just recently finished the tournament for season two. These tournaments bring the best players from around the world to compete in a live streamed competition for large amounts of money, this season the grand prize was one million US dollars. These events are watched by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide with the grand final bringing in over 900000 viewers [4].
Riot has also helped the worldwide community through charity work. The most notable effort was raising funds after the tsunami hit Japan on March 11th, 2011. Riot announced “Players have asked if there is something we as a community could do to help those affected by the March 11th quake. From now until 12:00pm on Sunday the 27th, all proceeds from the purchase of Nurse Akali or RP purchases of the champion Akali will be donated to the Red Cross to help those in need following this tragic occurrence. You’ll also find that we’ve placed the champion Akali – along with her alluring Nurse Akali skin – on sale for 50% off to encourage donations.” [5] . This charity drive raised a total amount of $162,430 to help with the relief effort. Riot has also ran similar charity drives for other charity foundations, including Make a Wish.
Another thing Riot does to engage the community further is to change in game elements depending on the holiday season. Every Christmas and Halloween the main map in League of Legends changes appearance to match the current holiday season. They also tend to release new champion skins and other holiday items, or change existing ones to something more seasonal. There has also been skins and items released in accordance to the Chinese new years and Easter.
Riot has also helped the worldwide community through charity work. The most notable effort was raising funds after the tsunami hit Japan on March 11th, 2011. Riot announced “Players have asked if there is something we as a community could do to help those affected by the March 11th quake. From now until 12:00pm on Sunday the 27th, all proceeds from the purchase of Nurse Akali or RP purchases of the champion Akali will be donated to the Red Cross to help those in need following this tragic occurrence. You’ll also find that we’ve placed the champion Akali – along with her alluring Nurse Akali skin – on sale for 50% off to encourage donations.” [5] . This charity drive raised a total amount of $162,430 to help with the relief effort. Riot has also ran similar charity drives for other charity foundations, including Make a Wish.
Another thing Riot does to engage the community further is to change in game elements depending on the holiday season. Every Christmas and Halloween the main map in League of Legends changes appearance to match the current holiday season. They also tend to release new champion skins and other holiday items, or change existing ones to something more seasonal. There has also been skins and items released in accordance to the Chinese new years and Easter.
Heroes of Newerth
Right before the free to play release of Heroes of Newerth S2 released a set of stats to clarify that going free to play was not a last ditch effort to save the game. The game had 460,000 unique active players around the world, and at any one given time there were roughly 30,000 people playing, with daily concurrent peaks of over 50,000.
You realise the sense of community and the dedication many players show to the game genre with 40% of the active player base logging in every single day, and at least 90% of the registered HoN accounts were active. The people that own the game, played it everyday.
Since the Free to play release, the number of players online has slowly grown, with the game now now peaking at 100,000 players online and during off peak times there are still 60,000 people still online at any one time. The issue with free to play is that many players make new accounts, in order to have their stats reset and vs new players. To counter this S2 made it so that the first few games played gave 4x the amount of matchmaking rank stat, thus causing these ‘smurfs’ to leave the new player bracket very quickly.
You realise the sense of community and the dedication many players show to the game genre with 40% of the active player base logging in every single day, and at least 90% of the registered HoN accounts were active. The people that own the game, played it everyday.
Since the Free to play release, the number of players online has slowly grown, with the game now now peaking at 100,000 players online and during off peak times there are still 60,000 people still online at any one time. The issue with free to play is that many players make new accounts, in order to have their stats reset and vs new players. To counter this S2 made it so that the first few games played gave 4x the amount of matchmaking rank stat, thus causing these ‘smurfs’ to leave the new player bracket very quickly.
DOTA 2
It is difficult to put a figure on size of the Dota community, as there isn’t a need for registration to play, so gathering exact statistical information is difficult. Some statistics can be used from the number of downloads from the DotA website, but this is not a 100% representation since the files can be mirrored elsewhere. Another method would be player data from BNet but even this is not a definitive source as there are alternative master servers than the one provided by Activision Blizzard. The estimated player base according to the current developer IceFrog, he estimates that the size of the player base is approximately 14-22million worldwide as of 2010 [6]
While still quite large the player base has started to dwindle in recent years, due to the emergence of other games in the genre, that being LoL, HoN and Dota2.
Dota 2, while currently in beta development it is still popular will with 84,000 concurrent players, and already surpassing HoN.
While still quite large the player base has started to dwindle in recent years, due to the emergence of other games in the genre, that being LoL, HoN and Dota2.
Dota 2, while currently in beta development it is still popular will with 84,000 concurrent players, and already surpassing HoN.
Future of the Genre
As a taste to see where this genre is heading, I have created a small list of many of the more interesting and innovative games that have been recently released or announced in this genre. This shows the MOBA genre is still young and thus it is still evolving, and will continue to do so.
Awesomenauts
Awesomenauts is another spin off of the MOBA genre, this game is quite unique in that it is a 2D shooter with all the elements of a MOBA game such as dota, except there is only 3 players a side.
http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/awesomenauts03.jpg
Guardians of Middle-earth
GoMe is an attempt to port the standard MOBA genre onto the home console, specifically the PS3 and XBox 360.
http://download.gamezone.com/uploads/image/data/1110265/gome2.jpg
Realm of the Titans
This is the chinese version of data with several twists, the ability to change a 5th move of a character every 3 minutes, and 4 bosses, which when killed by a team, causes their own adjacent boss to charge down a lane much like a creep.
http://i1-games.softpedia-static.com/screenshots/Realm-of-the-Titans-Hero-Showcase-2-Flame-Wing-Trailer_1.jpg
Rise of the Immortals
This game is based off of the MOBA genre, but it has a much more social aspect to the game, with a players having an account based levelling system that allows them to upgrade their immortals through a persistent skill tree. Being able to customise their character and unlock new abilities.
http://images.wikia.com/riseofimmortals/images/a/a0/RiseOfImmortals.jpg
SMITE
SMITE is a very unique style of MOBA as it was the first true MOBA to take on the Third person view approach, the game is currently still in beta, and is being critisized by several prominent religious leaders for the use of Gods as the champions.
http://www.thegamerschallenge.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/smite-gameplay.png
Super Monday Night Combat
This game is a hybrid between a Third-Person shooter and a MOBA, the game plays much like a first person shooter, except that it incorporates the character selection, and team based objectives of a MOBA.
http://www.evilsourcegaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Combat-in-SMNC1-1024x576.jpg
Sins of a Dark Age
Sins of a Dark Age is an odd combination between an RTS and a MOBA. There are 6 players a team, and at the beginning of each game the team selects a commander, this commander plays the game as if it were an RTS, using special abilities and units to help push and destroy the enemy base and players. The other 5 players play the game as if it were a classic MOBA such as DoTA,
http://splitkick.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/soada-2.jpg
http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/article/122/1220661/sins-of-a-dark-age-20120313113619342-000.jpg
I believe that due to the difficulty and level of skill required to play the original DoTA, remakes and clones of the game such as HoN and DoTA 2 will continue to be played by tens of thousands worldwide. While games such as LoL, Blizzard All-stars and SMITE will continue to add in new gameplay elements into this genre, making each new game unique, so that players may find their own unique and favourite style of MOBA.
The game is also being combined with other genres, with both Super Monday Night Combat and Awesomenauts already being very successful since their initial release, while Sins of a Dark Age is looking very promising, and is quite likely to succeed as is is attempting to target a market that has not yet been touched by the MOBA genre, creating a brand new, and exciting gameplay experience.
This genre has a long way to go, however, the largest issue with it is that due to the fact that the majority of MOBA players stick to a single game within the genre, many of the newer games to be released in this genre are likely to fail, not because they are bad games, simply because of the lack of migration of players. Currently Riot’s League of Legends has a titan’s grip on the player base of the MOBA genre, much like the grip that World of Warcraft has on the MMORPG player base.
Awesomenauts
Awesomenauts is another spin off of the MOBA genre, this game is quite unique in that it is a 2D shooter with all the elements of a MOBA game such as dota, except there is only 3 players a side.
http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/awesomenauts03.jpg
Guardians of Middle-earth
GoMe is an attempt to port the standard MOBA genre onto the home console, specifically the PS3 and XBox 360.
http://download.gamezone.com/uploads/image/data/1110265/gome2.jpg
Realm of the Titans
This is the chinese version of data with several twists, the ability to change a 5th move of a character every 3 minutes, and 4 bosses, which when killed by a team, causes their own adjacent boss to charge down a lane much like a creep.
http://i1-games.softpedia-static.com/screenshots/Realm-of-the-Titans-Hero-Showcase-2-Flame-Wing-Trailer_1.jpg
Rise of the Immortals
This game is based off of the MOBA genre, but it has a much more social aspect to the game, with a players having an account based levelling system that allows them to upgrade their immortals through a persistent skill tree. Being able to customise their character and unlock new abilities.
http://images.wikia.com/riseofimmortals/images/a/a0/RiseOfImmortals.jpg
SMITE
SMITE is a very unique style of MOBA as it was the first true MOBA to take on the Third person view approach, the game is currently still in beta, and is being critisized by several prominent religious leaders for the use of Gods as the champions.
http://www.thegamerschallenge.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/smite-gameplay.png
Super Monday Night Combat
This game is a hybrid between a Third-Person shooter and a MOBA, the game plays much like a first person shooter, except that it incorporates the character selection, and team based objectives of a MOBA.
http://www.evilsourcegaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Combat-in-SMNC1-1024x576.jpg
Sins of a Dark Age
Sins of a Dark Age is an odd combination between an RTS and a MOBA. There are 6 players a team, and at the beginning of each game the team selects a commander, this commander plays the game as if it were an RTS, using special abilities and units to help push and destroy the enemy base and players. The other 5 players play the game as if it were a classic MOBA such as DoTA,
http://splitkick.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/soada-2.jpg
http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/article/122/1220661/sins-of-a-dark-age-20120313113619342-000.jpg
I believe that due to the difficulty and level of skill required to play the original DoTA, remakes and clones of the game such as HoN and DoTA 2 will continue to be played by tens of thousands worldwide. While games such as LoL, Blizzard All-stars and SMITE will continue to add in new gameplay elements into this genre, making each new game unique, so that players may find their own unique and favourite style of MOBA.
The game is also being combined with other genres, with both Super Monday Night Combat and Awesomenauts already being very successful since their initial release, while Sins of a Dark Age is looking very promising, and is quite likely to succeed as is is attempting to target a market that has not yet been touched by the MOBA genre, creating a brand new, and exciting gameplay experience.
This genre has a long way to go, however, the largest issue with it is that due to the fact that the majority of MOBA players stick to a single game within the genre, many of the newer games to be released in this genre are likely to fail, not because they are bad games, simply because of the lack of migration of players. Currently Riot’s League of Legends has a titan’s grip on the player base of the MOBA genre, much like the grip that World of Warcraft has on the MMORPG player base.
References
[1] http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/interviews/5686-League-of-Legends-Marc-Merrill-Q-A
[2] http://timeline.leagueoflegends.com/
[3] http://majorleagueoflegends.s3.amazonaws.com/lol_infographic.png
[4] http://www.gamezone.com/products/league-of-legends/news/league-of-legends-season-2-world-finals-live-now-over-900-000-concurrent-viewers-biggest-esports-event-in-history
[5] http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=597991
[6] http://www.dota-utilities.com/2010/05/icefrog-q-session-4.html
[7] http://heroesofnewerth.com
[8] http://beta.xfire.com/games/demigod
[2] http://timeline.leagueoflegends.com/
[3] http://majorleagueoflegends.s3.amazonaws.com/lol_infographic.png
[4] http://www.gamezone.com/products/league-of-legends/news/league-of-legends-season-2-world-finals-live-now-over-900-000-concurrent-viewers-biggest-esports-event-in-history
[5] http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=597991
[6] http://www.dota-utilities.com/2010/05/icefrog-q-session-4.html
[7] http://heroesofnewerth.com
[8] http://beta.xfire.com/games/demigod