Valve adds Dota 2 high end competitive play support
Pay to watch tournaments in-game.
Valve will this week add high end competitive play support to its action RTS Dota 2.
The idea is that the game will better connect tournament organisers and professional players to their fans.
Added in this week's update is the Tournament view in the game client, which is home to current and past tournaments. You can choose which are worth paying to watch, and when you buy a tournament Valve will share the money with the organisers.
"This won't be the end of our features for tournaments, or players, but we think it's the right first step - helping tournaments become more financially stable helps all the players participating in them," the Dota 2 team said in a blog update.
"Our goal here isn't to replace web-based streams - we think those are fantastic, and we'll continue to do the best we can to support them. Some customers will always prefer to use their web browser to watch matches.
"But we think there are some customers who'd like to invest in a higher fidelity, richer experience that they have more control over, and we hope to be able to provide that with the in-game Tournament view.
"We also believe that external companies providing financial support for tournaments is a crucial component to the competitive scene, and we have several ideas for how to provide them with features that will work in both the Tournament view and web-based streams."
Also added is better in-game support for competitive teams. The new Team system allows players to identify themselves to Dota 2 as a competitive team and provide information. Expect to see statistics about long term performance. Also, the game will detect matches between competitive teams, and use the Team's information to highlight the match.
Once Valve has "got the kinks ironed out" of the Team system it will open it up to everyone.
Dota 2 is still in beta but already it's the most-played game on Steam, and, in 2011, paid out over $1 million to professional gamers.
The second International tournament, set for PAX East this year, will award the winning team with an incredible $1 million prize.
