DOTA 2 Will be Free to Play!

DOTA 2 will be free to play, according to Valve boss Gabe Newell. In an interview on the podcast, Seven Day Cooldown, Gaben himself said Valve’s upcoming take on the MOBA genre will indeed be free to play, but with a twist!

He didn't offer specifics as to exactly how it will work when the game launches, but hinted that players who are "valuable" to the community might get some kind of special treatment. When prodded over what kind of twists players can expect, Newell said:

"The issue that we're struggling with quite a bit is something I've kind of talked about before, which is how do you properly value people's contributions to a community?

"We're trying to figure out ways so that people who are more valuable to everybody else [are] recognized and accommodated. We all know people where if they're playing we want to play, and there are other people where if they're playing we would [rather] be on the other side of the planet.

"It's just a question of coming up with mechanisms that recognize and reward people who are doing things that are valuable to other groups of people."

There's still no word on exactly when DOTA 2 will be available, though it is expected out some time this year.