In January 2020, Dota 2, one of Valve’s biggest games, had hit the lowest point in 7 years: 390,000 average concurrent players. The number might seem impressive from the outside but for Dota 2, it was considerably lower than the standard. The game was obviously dying simply because its player base was gradually aging and quitting while Valve’s marketing strategy was mostly failing to attract new players. Something needed to be done asap.
Creating a Netflix Anime Series
Nobody knows what happened behind the curtain but it’s clear that Valve took action. Because in March 2021, Netflix premiered Dota: Dragon’s Blood, an anime series based on Dota 2. The show was produced by Studio Mir in association with Ashley Edward Miller and had tremendous success, receiving an overall IMDb rating of 7.9 from around 17000 viewers.
Dota: Dragon’s Blood would not have been possible without the great lore created for the game by Valve. The heroes you can play are not only compelling from a gaming perspective. They’re also compelling from a literary perspective. This offers screenwriters a solid foundation to build upon. For example, just take a look at this passage from the lore of Invoker, a powerful mage who is also featured in the anime.
“The greatest mages in those days were the ones blessed with the greatest memories, and yet so complex were the invocations that all wizards were forced to specialize. […] But among these early practitioners there was one exception, a genius of vast intellect and prodigious memory who came to be known as the Invoker. In his youth, the precocious wizard mastered not four, not five, not even seven incantations: He could command no fewer than ten spells, and cast them instantly.”
The Result
Dota: Dragon’s Blood has only had two short seasons so far but the results are spectacular. It is estimated that the game has either gained or brought back somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million players. From 390,000 average concurrent players on Steam in January 2020, the number jumped to 485,000 (January 2022). Now it’s back to 460,000, but a lot of that is caused by Valve’s inability to create a proper tutorial for new players and introduce them to the vast Universe that they’ve created.
Replicability
What Valve has achieved with Dota: Dragon’s Blood is clear proof that the anime marketing strategy works. And it’s obvious why: young people these days watch a lot of anime. Once you fall in love with the story, it’s not that complicated to discover that the whole thing started from a video game that happens to be played by around 8 million people and features some of the biggest esports tournaments in the world. Just in 2021, the Dota 2 world championship, called The International, had a prize pool of more than $40 million.
Another key to Valve’s strategy is the free-to-play model. When you can download a game for free in less than 30 minutes and play it with no strings attached, going from watching an anime episode to playing the game that inspired it feels very natural. Of course, not everyone will become a regular Dota 2 player. But a significant percentage of those who love both anime and gaming probably will. And as a result, this marketing strategy is quite effective.
Other MOBA Games
Dota 2 is not the only Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game in the world of esports and it’s definitely not the biggest. Other titles, such as League of Legends, Wild Rift, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Arena of Valor, or Dream of the Three Kingdoms 2 are far more popular. So the question naturally arises: will the companies behind these games copy Valve’s model? And in what way?
Let’s take the case of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. This mobile game is played by around 80 million people and its tournaments are quickly becoming famous. You can watch them on Twitch or bet on them online if you wish. Moonton, the Chinese company that developed this MOBA, has already made important moves that seem to replicate Valve’s. The need here for marketing is far less severe, because their game is clearly not dying. In fact, it’s becoming more and more popular with every passing month. But despite the success, Moonton has already released its own anime series, called The Legends of Dawn: The Sacred Stone. And it’s probably only a matter of time until we see Riot Games do the same.