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I

E-Society
In this paper we will try to identity how small team of 5 people in the Dota2 can resemble to
the expression of individual in real life. We will develop argument around the higher
education system that one is entitled to be part of, to survive in the world and make a choice
to play her role as a part of community and efforts to support one another for living through
structural analysis of Dota2 which goes on same lines of understanding world that we live
into.
Dota2 is the new form of e-sport which is played online with players all over the world.
There are several places one can play the game with others. But we will consider online
gaming here just to resemble the idea of being into the world, just as an accident with some
unknown people around you, where you are supposed to adapt with the help of all the
resources around you. You don’t necessarily know them personally but you enjoy playing
with them with certain sets of rules which are predefined in most complex manner.
DotA is set up as an epic, ten player battle that takes place over the course of about an hour-
long game. There are ten players at a time, split into two teams of five. Each player takes
control of one hero, and the teams fight it out across the battlefield with the help of computer
controlled units and structures until one side destroys their opponents' Ancient. The Ancients
are heavily defended structures situated in the middle of each base (Icefrog 2010).
In earlier stages of development of the game there was not any money involved in this sport.
There were not many people that even knew about this game. But in gaming cafes of India
this got introduced through an individual map in Warcraft 3. There was a time that as a gamer
you will keep working around different mechanics of the game not just to know what is there
in it but, there was sense of respect from the peers, if one knows how to play as many games
as possible. It was mere activity of leisure and entertainment which allowed many to start
getting interested in it. But there was some structural basis of this individual map which got
famous all over the world which made people more engaged into the game than ever before.
This ultimately evolved into the Dota2 as an individual game powered by Steam. Over period
of time markets developed with publicity and all other strategies of marketing to generate
revenue. We will try to deconstruct this internal structure of the game which is no different
than those concepts we encounter in daily life.
First of all, we will identify the people who are actually playing this game actively. 650K-
700K are monthly average players who play Dota2 regularly (Jamesgray 2016). Engage
voluntarily into spending their energy and time for the sake of entertainment, even though it
doesn’t stimulate brain automatically as a movie, cartoons or even anime 1 A 2010 survey
found that youth age 8 to 18 devote seven-and-a-half hours a day to entertainment media
(Norcia 2014). In case of massively played multiplayer online games, largely players are
from age group of 16 to early 30s, involved in exploring the world of virtual gaming and

1 A style of Japanese film and television animation, typically aimed at adults as well as children.

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communicating with each other on large scales. This is the same age when individuals are
exposed to the reality outside the protected cocoon in their school years and left insecure in
job market to find right position for their future depending on their higher education. There is
cycle of thoughts which is running inside the individuals about the career and choice of
education, when previously there is no such opportunity or even a way of thinking of an
education as something of choice and field of expertize.

Value Creation
Before getting into the internal structure of the game, we will have a glimpse of meaning
making processes involved in the process of development of the game. These meaning
making processes essentially generated some value in it. This was started around 1998 much
before the large competitive international competitions were organized to promote the game
on the global scale from 2011 (Sullivan 2011). It was not only about the game mechanics
which were developed directly by the corporation based on some principle, but most
importantly had the community efforts behind building up the structure of the game. Though
it can be argued that, Starcraft was ultimately owned by the Blizzard corporation, where Aeon
of Strife 2- the individual map was developed inside the game (Altay 2015). This very map
was developed by many of the developers under various nick names like Eul, Guinsoo,
Neichus, IceFrog. The first version of Defense of the Ancients was released in 2003 by a
mapmaker under the alias of Eul who based the map on a previous StarCraft scenario known
as "Aeon of Strife". Eul then disappeared, but not before making his code open-source. This
open-source code was the key to take over further advancement in the development of the
game mechanics (Evilgeniuses 2012).
It is not be misunderstood that these were some individuals who actually developed the
mechanics on their own. But these are the few names that we know today, who actually built
the open forum on Internet3 which initiated discussion into the gaming community about the
various aspects of the game. With the spread of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos which was the
advanced version of Starcraft, DotA also became more and more popular. 9nid's users
gradually increased eventually reaching a point when its servers could not withstand the
traffic. At this point, the forum moved to RTSGamer. This started with some local Dota
leagues introducing stable Dota maps with stable set of rules. The competitive mode was
stabilized and organized competitions emerged.
The International Gaming Syndicate (IGS) started the first official league for DotA Allstars
(Iki 2011). Its spread in popularity was helped in great part by the website DotA-Allstars.com

2 It is the name of the individual map that was created by some one under the nickname of ‘Aeon64’.

3 During the development of the game, some (very few, I think about ten) people formed the first DotA
discussion forum called 9nid. This was the first semi-official DotA forum, where players would discuss DotA-
related matters. Even to this day, some of the earliest members are immortalized on a list.

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founded on October 14th, 2004 by TDA 4 member Pendragon (Dimirti 2013). It was the
official website for the DotA Allstars map, as well as a place for the DotA community to
partake in discussions. The reason we are getting into the historical development of the game
with great detail to understand that, these were some individual players who took initiative to
build upon the previous ideas and actually implemented and programmed all those aspects
into the game. This is somewhat what Deepak Mehta discusses about the quilt making
processes involved within the community. The act of quilt stitching has deep meaning of the
kinship (Mehta 2011). It was all about conversations involved, while stitching various types
of quilts which were eventually given as the gifts for various occasions. This whole process
gave rise to whole new gaming community.
Before it was undertaken by the Steam for development, in the earlier stages it was developed
by the community for the community for the sake of enjoyment. Since the virtual space was
developed by the Blizzard corporation, they even claimed the ownership on the game in the
courts, when the Valve corporation hired the developers of Dota to develop Dota2 in the
independent engine of Steam than Warcraft. This whole process of development of Dota, was
only possible because of the Dota Allstars community allowing players to communicate with
one another, arrange games, provide feedback on games balance, future developments, bug
reporting. Users could post ideas for new heroes or items, some of which are added to the
map. Players did contribut icons and hero descriptions and created the artwork displayed
while the map loads, and suggestions for changes to existing heroes or items were taken
seriously. By the end of IceFrog's affiliation (who was later hired by Steam for Dota2) in
May 2009 had over 1,500,000 registered users and had received over one million unique
visitors every month. All the vocabulary of the game was developed based upon many of the
mythical stories, like Abaddon, Lord of Avernus - Avernus is Latin for "void" or "abyss".
Abaddon (Hebrew for "destruction") is the name of the fallen angel of the abyss from the
Book of Revelation, which is the last book of the Bible. Is also a powerful character in the
miniature wargame Warhammer 40,000. Mercurial, Spectre - Having the characteristics of
eloquence, shrewdness, swiftness, and thievishness attributed to the god Mercury. Dagon - A
Semitic God. Eye of Skadi - Skadi is the wife of the Van god Njord in Norse mythology. She
was the Goddess of winter, and as a tribute to her the item causes a hero's attack to deal frost
damage, slowing opponents. Zeus, Lord of Olympia - Leader of the gods in Greek
mythology. Zeus was the god of lightning, and in DotA Allstars the Zeus hero specializes in
lightning-based spells.
Basically all these mythical references helped people to communicate with each other based
upon their belief. Not only the mythical references but at various places players used their
personal affiliation with the various daily real objects and used those names in the game. For
example, Roshan, which was named after Guinsoo's (one of the developers) bowling ball.
This kind of extreme engagement by the players into the development of game, respecting all

4 The Clan TDA (Team DotA Allstars) was formed in April 2004.

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those developers of the gaming community, with all the efforts and labor invested in the
process finally had commercial attention.
Considering this let’s look at the ways in which game is structured. The structure of the game
itself is the another reason for it to get so famous in the gaming community. This same
structure is used into various games like, League Of Legends (LoL), Heroes Of Newerth
(HoN) by different corporations (Minotti 2013). But the internal mechanics of the game are
almost the same which got it the huge audience base. It was nature of the game which
attracted millions of gamers to Dota2, with its internal structure which almost replicated the
principles of the real life. We will look into the various components of the games which
engages teenagers more into the game than traditional studies or processes of learning.

Choice
In the game there are almost 113 heroes that you can choose from. The same ways in which
institutionalized education system allows one to select from various options depending upon
their interests and personalities after the high school education. In case of game there is extra
choice on the first hand to whether really open an account and start exploring the world of
Dota2. It is not enforced directly by anyone or someone with authority or even elder in that
sense. It is just a buzz created around and one gets to know about this virtual world, where
large population of same age is engaged, form small communities of same liking, where it
does not matter where are you from and what do you do in life, your caste, gender or even
educational qualification but it is about your interest in the game that defines your presence in
the community. There is sense of inclusion developed within an individual which motivates
her to go and actually sign up to be part of this local community.
Once you get into the game over period of time you realize that it is not only limited to
gamers in that area where one resides, but there are small groups of people from all over the
world which encompasses large gaming community of millions and individual feels part of
that large gaming community. Whereas in case of traditional setup of higher education one is
entitled to take admission and study the syllabus. There is not much reason why someone is
becoming part of this education system. There is huge discrimination among those who are
good in traditional way of learning things or score good marks in the examination and those
who just cannot cope up in the rat race. People do not have basic choice to whether to opt into
taking further education or not.
If not education what next can be done with this life that one has? It is kind of automated
system of education where one does not have any idea about the education that they are
taking. One goes to the institution learning some theories and postulates which are developed
by someone in past. In usual setup one might even learn what someone has proved or stated
in past. But one does not find it significant in her context of world, as there is no background
over why something is explored the way it has. There is no space to facilitate the need to

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really understand these different ideas which are developed by those in the past with their
context and their need to come up with different world-views.

Learning
Usually individual encounters some e-game, which includes too many features and complex
in its nature, without having any theoretical knowledge required to play that game. Then what
is that makes her to engage into this multifaceted world of rules which is completely new to
her. The visual fundamentals itself are far different from what one sees in real world. These
visuals are quite weird and diverse to even grasp at times. At the same time, foundation of
reality is included in structuring the game which gives us the sense of reality that we
encounter every now and then like trees, water, animals, insects, building, roads, humans etc.
This analogy can be observed in our education system as well. Individuals encounter with
lots of vocabulary and terminology to actually understand the subject beforehand. There is no
practical implication of these subjects that one studies in the class. But rote learning these
words and the terminologies, generating conceptual maps associated with particular
definition becomes mechanical process without knowing the exact significance or role it has
in her understanding of the world. In the subconscious, the process is same from the
perspective of that individual, where she is trying to comprehend some data into its meaning
and significance, but in the game- there is visible role which she is supposed to play and
knowing the requirements of that character is necessary to improve the way one plays the
game. The necessity to know more and understand more or even develop new ways of
playing roles into the game is generated through actually taking part into the activity than
sitting in classroom and doing passive learning.

Valuation
In case of Dota2 individual has to open an account to play the game which starts with zero
experience points. This ensures that everyone starts from the base line and fight against each
other based on the experience one has. This grading is innovative in its own way where one is
scored in two ways.
One her overall experience of the game and time that she has spent on game, playing over
years. Second is comparative assessment based on other gamers. After certain level of
experience one can enter into ranked zone of battles where her skills based upon various
factors are measured and allotted a rank by calibrating some 30 matches in the start.
Comparative scoring is used in ranked matches scenario, which is based upon principle of
negative marking that helps one to keep track on her quality of game and style if one needs to
change it in any way to get better at playing. Now no matter what is the role that one chooses
and the hero that one plays, ultimate reward is same for every player of the team once they
win that particular match.

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There are different scales of scoring for solo matches as well as party matches. In party
matches one has the opportunity to team up in advance and play against opponents who have
the same formation of team. Whereas in solo matches you are accidentally teamed up with
some random people from the world of the same rank that of you. Here you get one more
choice to decide whether one wants to be at random position of team making or just want to
play along with those whom she knows already. This essentially changes the way one is
scored from another. So there is justice in a sense to actual valuation of the game-play
depending upon the format one chooses to be in. If someone does not want to be part of this
ranked gaming scenario, they can just play public matches where they can practice their skills
and enjoy the game-play without any burden of getting recorded or judged for what they do.
It is a kind of experimental learning where there is whole lot of scope to learn with the
method of trial and error than just mugging up standard ways of understanding multiple
factors of the game. This allows them to understand game in better sense and improve with
exploring various features inside the game to come up with own playing style.
This whole idea of having different scales based upon various aspects makes it possible for
individual to understand game in better way than demoralizing efforts taken to actually
explore and understand different facets of the game. This very idea of valuation and different
forms of valuation expedite learning based upon the individuality of the person and various
criteria that are involved in making of a person as a human. Now comparing this with the
institutional education becomes just impossible in a way because there is not taken enough
efforts to understand various facets of individual to bring best out her. Monotonous way of
education, where one is judged continually based upon normalization of their personalities
based upon some concrete notions of superiority, biases towards particular set of skills, which
will enhance ability to earn more at the end of the day. There is whole lot of injustice in
difference fields of education. Where science earns maximum compared to rest of
humanities, arts, fine arts. This is the major reason why specific age group of individuals are
attracted towards gaming where they find sense of inclusion. Ultimately to play a game they
are using the same kind of mental activity which is required to study in traditional setting.
In the 21st century, where unemployment is the major issue, one relates the end result of
studying books with their ability to earn. This fails tremendously on psycho-socio level of
understanding and seems like a useless task to even have proper education. Even the journey
of education and experiencing happiness through process of building up knowledge is beyond
all possibilities due to specific frame of looking at individuals and judging them on
preconceived notions, which doesn’t allow random exploration of the world nor values their
efforts they take for understanding one concept in the text. There is no motivation to study,
which eventually push them towards something like gaming, which allows them to appreciate
or accept themselves for what they are and what one is capable of doing in life. There is idea
of self and identity that is generated through process of playing games.

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Responsibility
On-line multi-player games allow players to meet different people with same class of
efficiency and move on competing with one another. In a sense there is space of equality,
where you encounter with those who have same level of skills that of self. There is
opportunity to improve based upon individual efforts and dedication to move one step ahead
of others. At the same time, one cannot be so mean to think of her own success, but she has to
think about collective well-being. To increase experience points in most efficient way she
needs to win the game with the ‘team’, so that every member of the team gets same amount
of experience points with her. This clearly has the sense of individuality to win, which makes
a lot of difference in losing and winning the game.
In the start of the match one has to choose one hero from the pool of more than hundred
heroes to play till end of the game. One has the sense of liberty to choose from various
options. At the same point she has to be particular enough while making the choice and think
about the requirements of the team. Now this is where worldly role that one has to choose
comes into picture which can be compared to the actual match.
We can see that there is distribution of labor in human society for collective well-being. There
are certain responsibilities shared among individuals and we survive as one unit. Same way in
the game to actually win the game, it requires a near-ideal amount of teamwork. Significant
teamwork of poor individual players playing as a team with proper communication, making
unique strategies and reacting best to the live situations can beat a team of good individual
players who don't work as a team. Even if three or four people has proper co-ordination and
understanding of each other, knowing their strength and weakness, makes it possible for them
to win the match even though, there are some individuals inferior compared to the rest. It
becomes quite easy to carry that weak player along with the team and make proper use her
capacity. This is one thing that makes games more interesting than real world of transactions
where everyone is being very individualistic in their world view that they don’t have time nor
a requirement to think about weak sections of the society. So while designing the game there
are similar roles that are required in real life are included in the game in form of distributed
categories of heroes.
The categories are agility, strength, intelligent. These names are quite precise to the
importance that one has in the game.
 Intelligent

In real world we think that intelligence is directly related to the brain and efficiency to
succeed in life. Where as in game it does play superior role in first 10-15 minutes of the game
and completely depend upon those, who play these intelligent heroes. In gaming scenarios
these heroes are called to be supports. Their major task is to support other heroes, handle
resources efficiently so that, agility heroes can get most of the benefit from initial stages of
the game.

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It is quite similar to what management people do. It is kind of office work where one will
have to keep eye on all the activities on the map, warn allies from any danger, help them into
what they are supposed to do, keep track of progress, decision making, maximizing the
efficiency of others and so on. But on the contrary to what we see in real world, these players
who play intelligent heroes, has same importance that of laborer who is actually doing the
work as agility heroes. For that matter the effective result of winning and losing game
depends upon those who are working on resource building than these intelligent heroes.
 Agility

These agility heroes are the carry of the game. Dominant in nature who ultimately carries the
team to the end of the game and make the team win after 25-30 minutes of the game. Till then
they are supposed to gather as many resources as possible and get stronger compared to the
opponent’s carries to eventually win the clashes in late game with better inventories. Now
these agility heroes are nothing but laborers, doing odd jobs to build up required inventory for
self. This very inventory is what makes possible for team to function in the game.
Surprisingly in the game maximum players are more interested in playing these types of
heroes than intelligent heroes. As in real world people will not like to think of these odd jobs
of laborers as important as those who manages them. Where as laborers are producing
commodity in actual sense.
 Strength

Every hero has specific set of skills, its own personality, which has different forms of damage
to kill the opponent. Every hero cannot take the damage and survive the clash. So there are
strength heroes (durables) which take the damage as much as possible so that in the
meanwhile allies will damage more to the opponents and dominate one another. These are
similar characters like carries which produce resources building up inventories but for
different purpose than carries. These durables are producing some commodities which are
owned individually, but usable on the allies to help them in different ways to protect them or
to empower them to survive. Let us think of these durables as NGO-s who are working in
society to empower weak section of community. This is fundamentally required to ensure
every one of the team is alive, and do not lose resources in the process of death and reviving
back into the game. As once individual is dead in the game she is not playing the game for
certain amount of time as a penalty which affects pace of the game significantly.
This is very significant when think of every human being as a part of the society. Why is it
important to take care every member of the society? It is not just moral duty or responsibility
to ensure living of others but eventually those people are ensuring our well-being and quality
of life. So if they are rising above poverty and are healthy, as a community there is better
opportunity for humanity to flourish in sustainable fashion.

Flexibility

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Though there are strong categories developed inside the game to understand the role of
individual character into the game, one can completely change the dynamics of the game
knowing exact specialty of the hero based upon her unique understanding of the powers it
has. So while picking up the roles in the game to balance the team, one can make proper
strategy to eventually win the match. If there is some gimmick intended by opponents, then in
the game knowing their strategy, depending upon the placement of the heroes in the map and
various other factors one can change the roles completely with the same heroes and adjust the
requirements to tackle the opponent. Then at a point carry starts supporting the intelligent
heroes which can nuke down opponents and win over easily just because one sacrifices and
understands her exact role, which is required in particular gaming scenario. This kind of
understanding in human society and responsibilities shared among each other can ensure
development of cooperative societies which are based upon fraternity, justice and freedom.

Dialogue
Even though there is hidden identity of individuals in the game you need to communicate
with each other to know what are they best at and be honest about their dexterity. Due to this
anonymous nature of self in the game, one has no fear or pressure to be judged on his
originality. When you are allotted as a team, there is no other option than to co-operate and
take over the weakness of the team with your own set of expertize developed over period of
time. After tremendous efforts and practice, knowing various aspects of the game one starts
enjoying it. Then it does not remain the question of winning and losing one match, but
processes that are involved into the game itself are rewarding enough to human
consciousness to grow as a gaming community.

Individuality Within Community


Though there is concrete structure to the game with some definite goals to be achieved there
is whole lot of scope for individuals to decide their ways to approach. One has to identify her
place in the team according to the dynamics of the team. As we have seen before this team is
formed from the pool of individuals of same experience and awareness of the game on the
principle of uniform distribution, so somewhere one has to accept that there can be weak
section of players who does not have certain skills that are required to win the game. But then
one has sense of responsibility to give her best to take everyone with her and play united.
Now this flexibility into the structure of game where one can express her individuality but at
the same time, there is acceptance of the complex situations that one encounters. There is
sense of justice and equality that is developed into the game by working upon those factors
which are lacking in real life. There is space for human expression, at the same time
continues efforts are taken from the developers of the game depending upon the feedback of
the players. The changes are made according to the collective voting, reporting bugs and so

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on. This builds up the sense of trust that, may be this is not the perfect world that we are
playing into but there are some visible efforts by someone to eliminate those errors and
maintain integrity of gaming scenario. There are different heroes developed over period of
time and added to the game as it balances the meta of the game because of collective efforts
of gaming community in participation of decision making of the game.
Let’s not look at the game as something complete imagination but the ways in which it
resembles with various worldly transactions one is engaged into, in real life. The possibilities
of changing world that we live into. Will this gaming community give rise to humanity in its
new form? Can this revive morals, ethics, empathy, responsibility as a community? There is a
vacuum in education system which is failing to provide what is required by human society to
sustain for long as a community. In a way we can incorporate these gaming ideas into real
world of education, which will help youth to make sense of the transactions happening
around them in most efficient way and identify their role to survive communally.

References:
1. Icefrog. “Learn.” Playdota.com. http://www.playdota.com/learn. 2010.

2. Jamesgray. “Dota 2.” Steamcharts.com. http://steamcharts.com/app/570. 2016.

3. Norcia, Andrea. “The Impact of Video Games.” Palo Alto Medical Foundation.
http://www.pamf.org/parenting-teens/general/media-web/videogames.html. 2014.
4. Sullivan, Lucas. “Valve to hold $1,000,000 Dota 2 tournament at Gamescom.” Future US,
Inc. http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-to-hold-1000000-dota-2-tournament-at-gamescom/.
2011.

5. Altay, Omer. “The First MOBA - Aeon of Strife.” MMOs.com.


https://mmos.com/editorials/the-first-moba-aeon-of-strife . 2015.
6. Dimirti. “Dota 2: A History Lesson.” Crowd Control Productions.
https://www.themittani.com/features/dota-2-history-lesson?nopaging=1. 2013.
7. Mehta, Deepak. “Women’s Work : Quilt Making & Gift Giving” in Veena Das &
Ranendra K. Das, “Sociology & Anthropology of Economic Life”. OUP, 2011.
8. Evil Geniuses. “Blizzard v. Valve: The Fate of the Dota Brand.”
http://evilgeniuses.gg/. http://evilgeniuses.gg/Read/136,Blizzard-v-Valve-The-Fate-of-
the-Dota-Brand/. 2012.
9. Iki. “History of DotA.”GosuGamers.net.
http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/features/36824-history-of-dota. 2011.
10. Minotti, Mike. “Comparing MOBAs: Dota 2 vs. League of Legends vs. Heroes of
Newerth.” http://venturebeat.com/. http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/27/comparing-
mobas-dota-2-vs-league-of-legends-vs-heroes-of-newerth/. 2013.
Word Count: 4,964

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