Dota 2 is losing players, which will make finding games harder for the players who are left.

As of today, Dota 2’s average concurrent player count is sitting at just under 384,000 players, with a peak player count of under 627,000. That’s the lowest it’s been since December of 2013, just over a year after the game first released on Steam.

To be fair to Dota 2, that’s still an enormous number of players that have it sitting in third place on the overall Steamcharts, just behind PUBG. But it is a troubling sign for what was once the dominant force in Steam gaming.

What's causing players to leave? That can be hard to pin down, but we have a few ideas. A new player toxicity system was implemented earlier last year that is handing out 2-decade bans for excessively toxic player behavior. That has likely caused more than a few forceful ejections from the Dota 2 community, given the legendary toxicity that online MOBAs endure.

Another factor might be the Hong Kong protests. Besides causing a significant number of Hong Kong players to stop playing in order to take part in the protests, players were also banned from Dota 2 for typing in anti-China messages during The International 2019.

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But the most likely reason is just that Dota 2 is old. The game first released in 2012, and since then it's gone on to become the biggest game in eSports history. The International 2019 had a total prize pool of over $34 million--more than any other eSports tournament--and Dota 2 players are the most well-compensated eSports athletes in the world.

Dota 2
via Valve
Dota 2

However, the game has matured and older players are likely moving on to different, newer games. If new players don't make their way to Dota 2 to replace them, then overall player count decreases. This could lead to a downward spiral of players as fewer players make matchmaking more difficult. As matchmaking makes games less closely matched, then more players leave, repeating the cycle.

Dota 2 is not yet at the point where this cycle has become irreversible, but it is a disturbing trend that Valve will certainly take note of in 2020. How they plan to fix it is an entirely open question.

Source: Steamcharts, Gamerant

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