The custom Dota Auto Chess mod has returned a quarter of the audience to Dota 2. Now they will make a mobile game out of it
Tens of thousands of users have returned to Dota 2 in recent months. All thanks to the custom Dota Auto Chess mod. According to Newzoo analysts, it may well give rise to a new genre.
Let’s figure out what its essence is, but first — about the successes. They are impressive.
Dota Auto Chess Successes
- In two months, the mod was downloaded by 7 million Steam users. If Dota Auto Chess were a separate game, it would become the fourth most popular in the store (after Dota 2, PUBG and CS:GO).
- Dota Auto Chess has increased the PC audience of Dota 2 by 23%.
- Thanks to the mod, Dota 2 has peaked at 1 million simultaneous players for the first time in two years. The peak of the online Dota Auto Chess itself is 300 thousand people.
- The Dota Auto Chess channel on Twitch has accumulated 2.4 million hours of live broadcasts since mid-March. Let’s add 17.1 million hours of Dota Auto Chess views for January-March from the main Dota 2 channel.
- The mod has already become an esports discipline. Dota Auto Chess tournaments were held by the Chinese streaming platform Douyu and Twitch.
- Dota Auto Chess can be compared to the progenitor mods of the MOBA and battle royale genres in terms of success.
The essence of Dota Auto Chess
The mod is an eight-player strategy. They fight each other in arenas styled like chess boards. Pairs of opponents for new rounds are randomly selected.
Before each round, the player can buy new pieces (i.e. characters) from the game’s suggested ones and place them on the board. The purchase is made for virtual currency (Gold). It is given to the player for winning the round. For losses, health points are taken away from him. The last surviving player wins the session.
There is another kind of virtual currency in fashion: Candy. It can be purchased for real money and spent on skins for the player’s avatar. It is also awarded for winning sessions (no more than 10 Candy per day).
Drodo has also added a chess-based rating system to its mod. Depending on the number of wins and losses, players are assigned ranks: from “pawn” to “queen”.
The Future of Dota Auto Chess
The mod was created by Drodo Studio. There are only four developers in it. They want to keep the autonomy from Valve (which, according to rumors, wants to buy a modification).
The mod will appear on mobile devices as a new IP. A new game — Auto Chess Mobile — will be released on the Chinese market. She will have no connection with Dota 2.
Instead of the characters of the famous MOBA in Auto Chess Mobile, heroes from Project: Daydream by the Chinese publisher Long Mobile will appear. It is unknown why Drodo chose to collaborate with this small publisher. According to Newzoo, she was offered to cooperate by several Chinese giants, including Tencent.
Anyway, Drodo has already opened pre-registration for Auto Chess in the App Store and Google Play. 750 thousand users have already registered. It’s hard to say when the project will be released in China. There are still delays in licensing new games in this country.
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