A common refrain that’s used to fight against unwanted monetization is “speak with your wallet” – ie don’t buy a thing you dislike. That advice appears to have worked out for Dota 2 players, as Valve has noted in a 10-year retrospective dev blog that the battle pass system is going away because there weren’t enough buyers, and the company found shifting resources from battle pass content to new features was welcomed by players.
“We made a deliberate choice earlier this year to run an experiment: to take some of the resources that would normally produce Battle Pass content and instead put them towards more speculative updates, including features and content that couldn’t fit into a Battle Pass.
“Most Dota players never buy a Battle Pass and never get any rewards from it. […] Community response to New Frontiers has helped us build confidence that working less on cosmetic content for the Battle Pass and more on a variety of exciting updates is the right long-term path for Dota as both a game and a community.”
The post then notes that future updates will follow a similar model, with a range of cosmetics for players over the year but a greater focus on adding “more diverse updates for all Dota players to enjoy.” This incidentally means that goodies offered to beef up the prize pool for the MOBA’s International esports event will change as well, as Valve won’t be adding battle passes as part of the pot.
