Gabe Newell: DOTA 2 Will Be Free-To-Play, But “With A Twist”

It would seem that previous speculation that Valve’s DOTA 2 would be free-to-play has actually turned out to be true. I was expecting a once-off payment, but Valve know how to surprise, don’t they?

According to Valve boss Gabe Newell, when speaking in an interview on a Seven Day Cooldown podcast, DOTA 2 will be free-to-play, but “with a twist”, although don’t let that worry you.

Newell has expressed that the free-to-play model planned for DOTA 2 is pretty unconventional, and unlike any that have been used in other games so far. He did have trouble explaining it though.

“It’s going to be free-to-play – it’ll have some twists, but that’s the easiest way for people to think about it,” Newell said.

Newell didn’t go into much detail regarding how the free-to-play system will work once the game releases in full, but he did hint that “valuable” players to the community would receive rewards.

“The issue that we’re struggling with quite a bit is something I’ve kind of talked about before, which is how do you properly value people’s contributions to a community?

“We’re trying to figure out ways so that people who are more valuable to everybody else [are] recognised and accommodated. We all know people where if they’re playing we want to play, and there are other people where if they’re playing we would [rather] be on the other side of the planet.

“It’s just a question of coming up with mechanisms that recognise and reward people who are doing things that are valuable to other groups of people.”

Newell gave an example of what kind of players will be rewarded, explaining that Valve will look to players who act as “useful guides” and tutors in games like DOTA 2. It will also look at “how people can create value or a service in one game and benefit somebody in a different game, you can start to see how the different games sort knit together.”

DOTA 2 is due to release fully sometime this year. It’s still in its beta phase at the moment, so be sure to read our full impressions of it if you want to know more.