On April 25, Valve answered the calls for a change in the competitive scene by introducing the three Dota 2 Majors events alongside The International. Similar to the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive scene, the majors are third party events that are endorsed by Valve to stabilize the scene especially when it comes to roster changes and fan engagement.
However, according to Richard Lewis, it seems that Valve has gone back on its words and Valve would most likely want to do the Majors in-house. Published on The Daily Dot, Lewis' article stated that organizers (perhaps organizations who have pitched to Valve) were informed today that Dota majors will not be a third party event.
"It (Valve) will control all aspects of organizing the tournaments and will only collaborate with other tournament organizers from a broadcast production standpoint," Lewis wrote.
Considering the already packed schedule by third party companies worldwide, this is undoubtedly a huge blow to them. On top of their long running tournament series being undermined and underappreciated, they would now have to schedule around four events a year. This means tournament organizers planning to run their tournament for 1-2 months could have teams refusing to join.
James 'Kennigit' Lampkin, senior manager of ESL has this to say:
@kptdota @Toffees_Dota2 i'll sorta confirm . Valve changes their mind every day and probably doesn't even know details yet. But roughly yes
— James Lampkin (@Kennigit) May 26, 2015The community on the other hand, is rather split on the claim with one half voicing their support and the other half worried. While many would agree that Valve initiated events would have better conditions and superior production, some are worried that Valve's monopoly of the Majors would eliminate third party organizers such as Starladder, MLG and many more.
Nonetheless, there are clear benefits which nobody could deny. Making the Majors a Valve event would definitely give professional players the best condition to compete in. As Jacky 'EternalEnvy' Mao has pointed out in many of his blogs, tournaments without a standard setting (chairs, monitors etc.) heavily affect the performance of a player.
Apart from that, fans from all over the world now do not have to travel all the way to the United States to watch an exclusive event considering a Dota 2 Major cup could happen at a city near them. Online viewers on the other hand, would benefit from the increase in production in which Valve will seek the advice from third party companies such as BeyondTheSummit and joinDOTA.
Headline image by Pezant
