posted by NanaKrustofski,
Valve has been criticised by the community for years for not advertising Dota 2. But does the company really need to spend money on ads when they make millions during The International alone? Esports is on the rise and new games regularly enter the scene. Most of them vanish quickly again, but the publishers who made it to the top give everything to keep their game there and stay relevant. Riot Games is nearly omnipresent with ads, whereas Epic Games gets one brand deal after another and jumps on every hype train possible. Only Valve seems to lean back and not put any effort into marketing.


Image: Screenshot Reddit

Would it really make sense for Dota's creator to go the same route as their competitors? Let's take a look at other publishers' strategies first.

Fortnite's marketing: a firework of creativity



Epic Game's Battle Royale takes the cake when it comes to marketing. They constantly build up hype, get the craziest cooperations and invent new ways of merging the game and real world.

When the new Star Wars film approached, Epic partnered with Disney, added skins and lightsabers into the game and held a public viewing in their in-game cinema where users could watch never seen footage before.

For their latest Chapter 2 Season 2, they plastered the globe with mysterious posters only saying "Fortnite" and billboards with phone numbers that led to cryptic messages. Their Discords and Reddits were changed, small hints and puzzle pieces were spread everywhere and the community went head over heels with speculation and anticipation.





Epic Games' strategy is completely catered to their young audience. They also see the value of content creators as younger people tend to spend more time watching streamers or YouTubers, even idolising them. Therefore, Epic implemented the feature that with any purchase, a code with the name of affiliated content creators can be added so they get a share. As a consequence influencers make more content, inform their followers about new items or changes in game to promote the usage of their code.

But would any of their marketing strategies work for Dota? Probably not so much. Current events don't find any place in the realm of the Ancients and the community would surely disapprove of scavenger hunts. Promo codes for content creators could potentially work the most, but don't really seem to be the right fit either.

Riot Games' strategy: Go viral and mainstream



Riot Games MOBA League of Legends shares more similarities to Dota when it comes to the game itself, but the community still differs. Interestingly, most people among the gaming community know League of Legends and how the game works. However, people oftentimes have not even heard of Dota and you often see yourself answering: "Do you know LoL? So Dota is the original version and it's a bit more complex". And it is also advertised more aggressively.

LoL promotions seem to be everywhere. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram – nothing is safe. Similar to Epic Games, Riot includes influencers into their form of advertisement. Spots are often created with LoL celebrities and therefore shared more often.



Riot does a better job at maintaining popularity. They constantly create content such as the song "K/DA" from 2019 that goes viral and attracts non-LoL players as well. The video for K/DA currently has surreal 319 million views. Valve on the other hand does not release content that could potentially be celebrated by other gamers and is more focused on pleasing their core audience. For comparison, the Dota 2 video with highest viewer count on YouTube is the Dota 2 Gamescom Trailer from eight years ago – and it has pitiful 10 million views.



Music nearly guarantees going viral and Riot has landed several hits. And if you search for Dota instead of Dota 2, the highest amount of clicks is increased to 34 millions: The legendary Dota song from Basshunter – that got uploaded 13 years ago already. The K/DA video however is not only a catchy song, it caused cosplays and fan covers to pop up everywhere as well. The perfect ingredients for spreading by word of mouth.

But again, none of these tactics would probably work for Dota 2. Imagine a catchy K-Pop song that features some of Dota's female heroes dancing around, would you be hyped about this content? Most likely not. But what about LoL's strategy to use social media platforms to create classical ads, why does Valve not follow this example? Because maybe they don't need to?

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