Following a month‐long qualifier and group stage, Dota 2’s “Shanghai Major” recently
concluded eleven days of exciting matches and backstage drama. Sponsored by Valve and
organized by Perfect World, the main event went on from the 25th of February to the 6th of
March at the Mercedes‐Benz Arena in Shanghai, China.
For the unfamiliar, Dota 2 is a popular “eSport” or electronic sport, a video game that is played
competitively by professional players. A sequel to a popular Warcraft 3 mod, Dota 2 at its core
pits two teams of five players, each controlling their own hero unit, against each other. The
objective of the game is to destroy the opposing team’s buildings: towers that fire projectiles at
nearby enemies, barracks that grant bonuses to the opposing team when destroyed, and
ultimately the Ancient, a big building at the center of the team’s base. Along the way, heroes
fight enemy heroes and AI controlled units called creeps in order to collect gold to make them
stronger. The teams must manage their resources and movements in order to destroy enemy
structures leading up to the Ancient, and ultimately the Ancient itself.
Players from all over the world are attracted to the game due to its depth and exciting
tournament events. The game is very popular, with a large competitive scene filled with players
trying to win tournaments with large prize pools. Valve, the company behind Dota 2, takes a
creative approach to prize pools. They often sell cosmetic items in the game to casual players in
order to add onto the prize pool. At The International 5, the base prize pool of one million and
six hundred thousand dollars became eighteen million and four hundred thousand dollars.
While the Shanghai Major was not directly crowd‐funded like The International, it was hosted
using revenue that Valve had earned from selling cosmetics to their players, with a prize pool of
three million dollars. As such, most expected the quality of the event to be amazing. Yet, the
quality of the event and the quality of life of the competing players were both severely lacking.
While viewers on Twitch TV (the video game streaming platform on which the Major was
hosted) tuned into the Shanghai Major for exciting matches and commentary, many found
themselves tuning in for the mess that was happening behind the scenes. The event was
riddled with huge problems that surfaced all over social media. There were many production
problems that got in the way of the event. At times, audio would desync or become static,
visuals would appear at the wrong times and there were many production delays. Many players
and talents found conditions very hostile. The relaxation lounge was a small room with plastic
chairs, the booths in which the players played smelled of glue and had poor ventilation, and
many possessions went missing (mice, keyboards and one set of car keys). Early on, many
people complained about the production quality over social media, annoyed with the delays
and video and audio errors.
The biggest scandal, however, came from the firing of host James “2GD” Harding. Harding was
hired to host the analyst panel at the Shanghai Major. His responsibility was to keep the
discussion flowing and keep the viewers entertained. At previous events, Harding has been
known to be controversial and offensive at times, an aspect of him which many knew and
requested him for. Being told by various Valve staff to be himself, Harding went onto the panel
as his usual controversial self. However, being seen as too offensive following jokes about
Chinese censorship and pornography as well as ignoring orders to go to commercial break,
Harding ended up being fired. This stirred a huge turmoil in the community, as many people
were upset that the host was fired for being himself and what they believed was his duty to
keep the viewers entertained. The scandal blew up so much that Gabe Newell, the CEO of Valve
himself publicly posted on social media that he had fired both James and the production team
responsible for the poor stream quality of the event. The community blew up when Newell
publicly called Harding “an ass”.
There were many mixed responses to Harding’s performance at the major and his subsequent
firing. Many people believed Valve to be in the wrong in firing Harding, believing that they hired
him for his specific on‐camera personality, while others found him too unprofessional and
damaging for the image of eSports. One key issue of note was that the jokes that he made may
have been culturally sensitive. In China, many people avoid openly joking about the
government and sexuality, so these were cited as grievous offenses and reasons for Harding’s
dismissal.
Despite the firing of multiple people, the situation did not improve. There were many more
scandals that were revealed as the event went on. There were suspicions of the head of Perfect
World, the organization in charge of organizing the event, cheaping out on the production
crew, equipment and construction. Perfect World hired a cheaper production company that
ended up performing poorly, purposely accepted cheaper monitors from their sponsors in
order to save money, and hastily constructed player booths and relaxation lounges, causing
massive discomfort for player and talent alike. Later on in the event, many prominent figures in
the Dota 2 community took to Twitter to describe their experiences. Multiple people that were
hired with a translator salary at the event ended up being forced to do other tasks, such as
leading the production team or hosting the main stage. Players found themselves getting sick
from the smell of glue in the booths, and when the event was over, they found most of their
gear stolen or packed into random boxes. One player was even missing his car keys.
While the Shanghai Major had many exciting games and changes for the competitive scene of
Dota 2, most of the aspects of the actual game were overshadowed by the scandals
surrounding the event. Whether it be the poor production quality, the poor quality of life for
the players or Gabe Newell himself publicly calling someone an ass, most of the attention was
focused behind the scenes, rather than on the actual event, despite it being filled with some of
the most action‐packed and exciting games in Dota history.
With a Valve sponsored event like The Shanghai Major, fans of the game expect quality and
polishing fitting for a product delivered by Valve. The community expects Valve to maintain the
professionalism of Dota 2 related events, especially ones that the company directly sponsors
and works on. Yet the Shanghai Major displayed a level of incompetency unheard of before
from Valve which presents a dangerous situation for the communit. If the main company
behind the game does not set a quality standard, then how can other tournaments respect the
players and help the tournament scene to flourish?
In an interview with GosuGamers (here's a link.), professional player Swindlezz highlighted the excellent quality of DotaPit, a tournament not directly hosted by Valve, compared to the poor quality of The Shanghai Major. While this tournament had excellent quality without the influence of Valve, there are many tournaments that frequently do not meet the expectations of the players. Players often complain about the quality of non‐Valve events, praising the quality of Valve hosted events such as The International and the different seasonal Majors. With the Shanghai Major being worse than tournaments like DotaPit, Valve tears down the standard of quality that they have set up over the years.
Going forward, Valve needs to maintain a higher standard of quality so that they can set their tournaments as an example for other privately‐run tournaments. Otherwise, players will be taken advantage of and the competitive scene will slowly die. The Shanghai Major’s poor quality and DotaPit’s excellent quality should be taken as a lesson from Valve to improve their tournaments. With the Spring Major just around the corner, it is imperative that Valve learns from their mistakes and raises the bar for their next tournament, otherwise they will see the eSport that they have painstakingly raised crumble into pieces.