DOTA 2 is one of the largest games on Steam. It has now reached a new peak of players that hasn’t been seen for many months. The reason might be related to Netflix.
What is the current status of DOTA 2? According to steamcharts, Dota had 786,118 concurrent players in January 2022. The last time this MOBA had so many players was over a year ago—in May 2020.
With the massive number of players, DOTA 2 is currently in 2nd place among the most played games on Steam, right after Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and a solid distance ahead of the long-time favorite PUBG: Battlegrounds.
The game from Valve has maintained strong player numbers for years, which rarely fluctuate significantly. This usually happens during major e-sports events that are among the biggest in the world or during new seasons in DOTA 2.
This time, however, nothing occurred to explain such an increase. At least not in the game itself.
Netflix series possibly brings in new players
Where are the players coming from? Since March 2021, there has been a series about DOTA 2 on Netflix called Dragon’s Blood. It returned on January 18 with Season 2—or “Book 2,” as it is referred to.
At the same time, the game mode Aghanim’s Labyrinth has been updated with new rewards, and an exclusive reward crate for the “International 2021” is now available. The tournament had its finale in October 2021.
What does Arcane have to do with it? At the end of 2021, a similar series to Dragon’s Blood called Arcane was also released on Netflix. However, this one focuses solely on the story of League of Legends, the major competitor of DOTA 2.
Arcane reached number 1 on Netflix charts in 38 countries and caused interest in LoL to spike significantly. Especially the heroes in leading roles gained a lot of attention.
Initially, Dragon’s Blood caused little stir for DOTA 2. It’s possible that the interest in the series and thus in the MOBA has grown only through the success of Arcane.
Since the player counts for DOTA 2 have steadily increased since September 2021, with some fluctuations before, several factors are likely at play here. The e-sports scene is particularly celebrated in DOTA 2:
