DOTA VS. CS:GO: DOES VALVE HAVE A FAVORITE?

Whether Valve genuinely invests more time and resources in the CS:GO or Dota 2 scenes has generated a lot of discussion among players and fans. Each has developed into enormous games with sizable fan bases, resulting in a stable and expanding esports scene for both of them. Before we examine Valve's management of the games, let's first look at direct comparisons and relevant facts about each of them. Cyber-sport.io team found the answer to this question.

Dota - Valve's favorite “child”

If you dig deeper, BP is not the only item in Dota. Valve updates Dota more often than Counter-Strike, releasing patches to balance, adding new heroes, and changing the map. For example, the difference will be enormous if we compare the latest patches for these two games. 

And suppose you remember things like a release of a single game on Dota, or a traditional appearance on the stage of Gabe at The International. In that case, it begs a very disappointing conclusion: Is Dota 2 favorite for Valve who gets all their attention? At the same time, CS:GO stands on the sidelines. To get to the bottom of this, we need to go back in time, namely 10 years ago.

Which is better esports - CS:GO or Dota?

Valve released these two bangers simultaneously and initially attached maximum diligence to pump both games. In 2013 Valve bought the rights to the popular Mirage map to add it to the competitive map pool. But at some point, the company stopped paying much attention to CS. This happened precisely when the game became the market leader among shooters. Valve was the winner in a battle with a significant layer of players who did not want to switch CS:GO. However, why have they not continued to develop CS at the same pace to attract millions of new gamers? 

From my point of view, the company makes a lot of money through Steam, and not a single competitor was not able to knock them from their eSports “throne”. It is obvious that they are satisfied with the leading positions which are now occupied by Dota 2 and CS. 

But if that CS solely dominates the market of online shooters (no mention of Valorant), then Dota has a serious rival in the face of League of Legends. And if Valve stop developing Dota, they will quickly lose their leadership positions in the field of MOBA. It is the main reason why Dota receives so much attention from the valve in the face of quality updates. 

Does Dota 2 make much more money than CS:GO?

And as for the massive gulf in prize money between Dota 2 and CS:GO, it comes down to BP sales which allows regular people to fund the International openly, but if you look closer, the top CS:GO players are not much poorer than the Doters. 

In 2014, an article was published where there was information that at the major EMS One earned Katowice 2014 teams have earned 200000$ from stickers, with a prize fund of tournament 250000$, and over time, this amount has only grown. For example, after only a year of ESL Cologne 2015, Valve released the financial report on the stickers, saying that the amount sent to the teams was more than 4 million dollars.

In August 2021, Astralis reported that the club had earned more than one million dollars from the sale of in-game items in the previous year, which is the total earnings of one organization in a year. If you imagine how much the organization and the cyber athletes raised in total, it would be comparable to the money that was raffled off at The International. 

Summary

In general, the prize money in Dota is clearly higher. At the last TI, there were three times as much money won as at all the CS:GO majors combined. But that doesn't mean the CS players are poorer than their "colleagues”. For starters, they make a lot of money from sticker sales, and secondly, Valve holds a CS Majors twice a year on average, while TI only has one. 

As for the updates, it all comes down to competition. Given Valorant's rapid growth, which has already surpassed CS in Twitch views, we're confident that if CS faces serious competition, such as Dota, Valve will take it with both hands.  Should Valve focus on increasing prize money in СS:GO or more on improving upgrades? You can write your thoughts in the comments. Share your experience with Cyber-sport.io. Subscribe and follow the latest eSports news!