Dota 2 Q&A

littleclaude

Dota 2 Q&A

I love Dota 2 but I am confused by Dota 2’s freemium business model?

Can someone explain to me how Valve make a profit from this game or is there another reason for its creation?

For example maybe valve started Dota 2 and hosts the international to get Steam installed on PCs around Asia which had a very low rate of people using steam previously.

Is it just for the love of making a fantastic mmorpg game?

Is the profit just from the international?

I'm a huge fan of the style of Dawn of the Ancients so thank you Valve and forgive me for my ignorance, I have been nose down in study books for a few months now but I am interested in your freemium business model....Happy for anyone to have a wild guess at answering this.

Jalcober

Valve makes a profit by selling cosmetic items for heroes on the Dota store. http://www.dota2.com/store/

littleclaude

I would love to know the sales figures for Valve from the store

Jalcober

From my calculations, my most recent set probably sold around 9100 units. Because valve takes a 75% cut they made about $47775. Probably not the most accurate numbers but it should be close enough.

littleclaude

Not rude at all, thanks for your input and enlightening me on the terminology.

Just out of interest how do you know "most of their profits will come from cosmetics" and not from getting a better foot hold in Asia through greater distribution of Steam by making a game like Dota 2 which to me looks very well suited for the Asian market, particularly in Korea and China.

Would you know if there are any stats on downloads in different countries, sales figures from the Valve store, success stories on people making DLC for DOTA 2.

Sukotto

Valve doesn't release sales figures because they don't want to or need to. At all. So its hard to tell where the money from Dota comes from.

As for success stories, this whole forum is full of people who make a living strictly by making Dota cosmetics.

mrpresident

littleclaude wrote: »

Not rude at all, thanks for your input and enlightening me on the terminology.

Just out of interest how do you know "most of their profits will come from cosmetics" and not from getting a better foot hold in Asia through greater distribution of Steam by making a game like Dota 2 which to me looks very well suited for the Asian market, particularly in Korea and China.

Would you know if there are any stats on downloads in different countries, sales figures from the Valve store, success stories on people making DLC for DOTA 2.

While that would be the most obvious way for Valve to make money, since I would guess Dota 2 makes pennies in comparison to what they get from game sales from Steam, last I heard in order to play Dota 2 in both China and Korea you need to go through some local provider's software, instead of Steam. I'm not living in China or Korea though so I'm not 100% sure how it works, except I do know that workshop creators get the same % of sales regardless of which country the sale came from.

As far as success stories, there are plenty, many people on this board including myself are making what I would call better than average living wages from the workshop. It is risky though, there's no guarantee you'll get paid for anything.

littleclaude

Thanks for you input guys! very interesting

And 'Mrpresident' One day when I have finished my research project in the next couple of months could I interview you for a magazine article, or anyone else that would be happy to do so 'please PM me'

I think it would make great informative reading and a little self promotion for you at the same time.

mrpresident

Sure, you can PM me whenever. Or messaging me on steam might be more reliable: http://steamcommunity.com/id/mrpresident_