The Dota 2 closed beta is set to begin in three weeks and will be available to thousands of players, Managing Director of Valve Gabe Newell told French website Gamekult in an interview yesterday.
This comes after last weekend’s The International Dota 2 Championships which saw sixteen of the world’s top teams fighting for a US$1.6 million (S$1.9 million) cash prize pot.
According to Newell, the Dota 2 team will be changing some things in response to feedback after the tournament, and the closed beta will go live with these changes. Newell also confirmed that there will be no story or single player mode for Dota 2, but you can add bots and play with the AI.
Most surprisingly, Newell insists that Valve still has no business model in place for Dota 2 yet, with the current emphasis being on convincing players that Dota 2 will be a good successor to Dota, and on making Dota 2 more accessible to those who were put off by the complexity of the first game. “When we are satisfied with this, we can then think of a way to monetise everything,” was what Newell said.
Could this mean that Dota 2 will be free-to-play after all? If so, well played, Valve. Well played.
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