Valve recently announced that it would be ending the Dota 2 battle pass. The battle pass, once known as The Compendium, hits the market every international tournament, raking in millions of dollars for the prize pool, but according to Valve, it’s not worth the time and effort.
So few people bought the battle pass that Valve decided (an incredible move given the trends in modern gaming) that it would do a better job of focusing on game updates and bringing every player Content, no matter how much money they spend on Dota 2.
It’s a bad decision that we have to give so much credit, but really, when you look around at the other live service kings and see that not only do they want as much money as possible from you, but they also want your time, It seems like we might as well give up playing anything with friends and instead seek out the solitary lives of single-player games. When asked how much is enough, most gaming companies laugh at the question, hoping to get more and more money from their cash cow consumers until the next big thing hits and six months ago they swear by They’ve changed the game forever when they shut down their servers.
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Instead, Valve took the occasion to look at how to really put their energy back into Dota 2 and move away from the easy route of cosmetics. The company is still after your time and money, don’t get me wrong, but there are better ways to enrich your pockets and keep your consumers happy than with the battle pass model.
The battle pass may be the most successful scam in video game history. “Oh,” said the faceless executive. “We heard how much you hate the best skins in gambling games, so now we’ve made them available to everyone.
You think that sounds good and solve all your problems, and then you can’t get a battle pass without spending cash, whereas previously in most of these games you could grab a loot box whenever you leveled up or completed challenges. Also, you now have to spend as much time as possible playing the game, or you risk missing out on skins that never come back this season. Essentially, loot boxes only ask for your money and put the onus on the player to choose whether to buy them, while battle passes play on the fear of missing out, forcing you to spend money and time to get the same skins as everyone else. Without randomness, there’s no fun in getting something in a box that your friends don’t have.
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Even so, in an extremely greedy situation like Overwatch 2, there are still some skins that you can’t earn and instead have to buy for a premium in the in-game store. Most recently, in the Overwatch 2 Invasion Bundle, Blizzard advertised that it would cost $15 to buy something that was previously promised to be part of the base game, and they’re advertising that the bundle includes skins for $19. At $19, the price of a new indie game, we have to ask whether these can be considered microtransactions anymore.
One point Valve makes in its blog post is why it dropped battle passes because almost no one is buying them.If the same goes for other popular instant-service games, then defending the battle pass model becomes more difficult because not only does it prove that these games focus on greed rather than making themselves better, but they also only cater to “whales”, Namely those with enough cash and time that they’ll be more than happy to drop a ton of money for the latest skins, emotes, etc.
I believe we’ve let the battle pass take its course, and for some games, it’s time to ditch them and show players new content that makes them want to play. Removing the battle pass from a game like Fortnite is impossible, but then again, Epic Games still manages to inject new weapons, map updates, and more into Fortnite every once in a while. The same can’t be said for other games, and as always, a loyal fan base will come more from a solid game that gets sustained attention, rather than a version that just focuses on how much money it can make from its player base in the shortest amount of time .