Dota 2 has been in Closed Beta for some time now as features are added and heroes from ages past return on a regular basis. One topic on many a Dota 2 player’s mind is - What sort of payment model will the action RTS launch with?
Will there be a base price with value adds? Will it be completely free to play? While there isn’t any official word on Dota 2’s price plan, all signs point to a free to play Steam title.
1) Consider the Competition.
While players will endlessly debate whether Dota 2 will be courting the same playerbase as Heroes of Newerth, League of Legends, and of course the original DotA on the WarCraft III client, it seems almost insane to completely ignore what other titles in the genre are doing right now. League of Legends launched with a free to play system that avoided the “pay for power” standard that has marred the perception of F2P titles for years.
Heroes of Newerth originally launched with a “box price”, but has since completely shifted to a free to play model. Other current genre titles like Rise of Immortals and Realm of the Titans have also embraced free to play models. Whether or not players consider these offerings as direct competition to Dota 2, it is difficult to ignore.
2) Hat Trick
All of the data mined information about Dota’s store and customization options point to a system similar to Team Fortress 2 gear and hats. While Dota 2 probably won’t feature functionally different weapons for heroes like TF2 does for classes, current indication is that players will be able to customize everything from weapons, belts, hats, taunts, couriers, kill phrases, and announcers. With the fairly recent rollout of the Steam inventory, everything here begins to add up.
3) Costly Consequences?
The arguments against Dota 2’s potentially open doors usually fall into the scope of some sort of griefing - If Dota 2 is free, can’t player’s simply make new accounts and continue to join games and troll away with one of the many avenues of griefing available? Get banned, make a new account, come right back? Create dozens or hundreds of accounts and have them AFK in games with the hopes of getting gear to sell, if it is issued in a manner similar to TF2?
It’s probably not too much of an issue. While “Smurfing” and low level griefing will surely exist in some form, it is likely that how Valve decides to implement levels and MMR into the matchmaking process will keep players safe from this kind of behavior after they’ve played through a fair number of games.
Dota 2’s pricing may be a mystery for now - But current clues all point to a potentially F2P title.
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