Dota 2’s player base has seen a significant rise in the peak players since the airing of Dragon’s Blood Season 2 just released one week ago.
Like most popular games, Dota 2 sees its own sets of ebbs and flows. Release of patches, Major tournaments and The International are some of the times when the player base experiences an uptick. But with the Dota 2 anime series released on Netflix, another factor has been added to the mix.
The Steam charts for the last 30 days (as looked at on the 24th of January) saw the second highest gain in a 30 day period that the past year has seen. The highest one was in October 2021, which was when The International 2021 (TI10) was played, which isn’t a surprise. The third highest gain was in April 2021, when Dota 2 patch 7.29 was released and Dawnbreaker was introduced to the game. The only thing that coincides with the current increase, which is nearly a 9% increase, is the release of season 2 of the Dota 2 anime series, Dragon’s Blood. The average player base reached its highest mark of 489685.7 players in the last twelve months and even though a lot of the Dota 2 community thought it was a rushed and shallow experience, the series seems to have had a positive effect on the player base for the game.
But that could be just coincidence, right? Maybe it’s the new year that has brought new players and old players back to the game. It is the peak player counter that points towards Dragon’s Blood as the reason for the increase in players. The peak player ticker hit a maximum of 786,611 in the last 30 days, and that day was none other than the 23rd of January. As the graph below shows, ever since the release of Dragon’s Blood Season 2, the peak players have steadily increased from 656,333 on the 18th of January to 786,611 on the 23rd of January. This graph indicates that while the new year may be a small factor, the majority of the recent increase in traffic to the game is due to the Dota 2 anime, Dragon’s Blood.
And the effect doesn’t just show on the game as a whole, it also manifests in more specific areas. Marci, who was brought to Dota 2 after first introducing her in the anime, has seen a sudden increase in her pick rate in the last few days.
The same can be said about the Priestess of the Moon, Mirana, who is a prominent character in the series. Right around the 18th of January, her pick rate increased by about 1.5% and it has stayed constant at the new level.
Surprisingly though, other prominent characters like Dragon Knight, Lina, Invoker and Terrorblade haven’t had an effect on their pick rate. It seems like not all characters get players excited about the game!
Dragon’s Blood Season 2 may not have been as good as Season 1 and might not have lived up to expectations, but the numbers show that it has had the right effect as far as getting players to come back goes. It is a totally different question whether this is a short term effect, or whether this new set of players are here to stay for at least a few weeks. Let’s hope the next season will be a major step up in terms of the story and the effect on the player base will be even more prominent.
