A new animated Netflix series about the MOBA and Steam mainstay “DOTA 2” (PC) has launched. Valve seems to have expected many new players from the series “Dota: Dragon’s Blood.” They did not come, but the star of the series, the Dragon Knight, is now significantly more popular in the game.
This is the series: On March 25th, Dota: Dragon’s Blood premiered on Netflix. The series aims to present a stylistic mix of anime and American cartoon.
In the series, Dragon Knight Davion developed a hatred for dragons because they cruelly killed his family when he was still a boy. Always those dragons!
The 8-episode series is about demons, dragons, betrayal, and gods that are not what they seem. Each episode lasts between 26 and 28 minutes.
The series is currently well received: On Rotten Tomatoes, Dota: Dragon’s Blood has a 93% audience score and 67% positive ratings from critics.
The trailer has received 2.3 million views on YouTube. We embed it here for you:
Netflix effect meets Dota 2, but not critically
These are the effects of the series: One can assume that Valve expected a surge of new players from the Netflix series who would discover DOTA 2 and then be excited about the complexity of the game which has been around since 2013.
However, the surge did not happen. The Steam database shows no significant change on March 25th. In fact, the number of players even slightly declined.
However, the popularity of the champion Dragon Knight in Dota 2 has increased, the class that represents the main character of the series:
- Before the series launched on March 23, the Dragon Knight had a pick rate of 7.18%
- On March 27, the Dragon Knight had a pick rate of 9.2%
However, the win rate has not changed much: A sign that rather regular players are picking Dragon Knight.
A Twitter account about DOTA 2 talks about the “Netflix effect.” While another Twitter user contrasts the player numbers of DOTA 2 to show: The Netflix effect did not bring more players.
What is the Netflix effect in games? It certainly does not run as hoped. After the launch of the Netflix series “The Witcher” in December 2019, the player count of the already four-year-old “The Witcher 3” exploded: It brought tens of thousands of new players to Steam.
The Witcher 3 reached a player count in January 2020 similar to its launch in May 2015. But in a complex genre like a MOBA, it seems that the “Netflix” effect does not work. The difference between series and game may be too great.
For DOTA 2, efforts are underway to attract new players. Fans are supporting the developers in this:
Players are raising $25,000 because the tutorial of DOTA 2 is so bad
