A History of MOBA’s

(originally published 4th January 2016 on DVS Gaming)

The Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) has taken over PC gaming the last few years. The most popular of these MOBA’s is also the most popular PC game being played at the moment. League of Legends is currently taking up 22.92% of  PC gaming time.  The success of this genre has skyrocketed. From its humble beginnings at Blizzard games, to the multi-million dollar eSport industry it has become today.

In 1998, Blizzard Entertainment launched Starcraft which featured the map editor “StarEdit”. One of the custom maps made with the editor was Aeon of Strife. It had 3 lanes and 8 playable heroes, with the goal of the map being the destruction of the enemy’s primary structure.  The players killed enemy heroes and AI controlling enemies, which awarded minerals (the primary resource of the game).  Minerals could then be used to upgrade armor or attack damage. While there wasn’t leveling (outside the number of upgrades a player bought) or other newer features seen today, this game style became the core concept of MOBAs.

Fast forward to 2002, when Blizzard released Warcraft III. With an updated engine, fans of Aeon of Strife were keen to recreate the map.  The project’s leader, Eul, renamed the map to Defense of the Ancients (or DotA short).  Huge improvements were made to matches, including the ability to level player controlled units and introducing Player vs Player.  Eul left the modding scene shortly after creating the DotAmap. Left with no clear successor, the other Warcraft III modders created maps based on DotA featuring different heroes.  In 2003, Warcraft III:  The Frozen Throne was released, bringing with it an even more powerful map making tool. Modders Meian and Ragn0r combined heroes from various DotA maps into one mod, calling it DotA Allstars.

A few months after its creation, DotA Allstars was taken over by Steve “Guinsoo” Feak, who tweaked and rebalanced the game. He also put it on the internet for public download making it more accessible.  However, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne were both needed to download and install the mod, which restricted the player base.  Feak continued to create more items and heroes for the mod, shifting the focus of the game to PvP.  However, with no tutorials or matchmaking system, the game was blindingly unforgiving to new players. By 2005, Feak had left the development of DotA to his assistant Neichus. After a few weeks of development and version releases, Neichus turned over responsibility to modder IceFrog. His changes were well received, and the number of users in the DotA AllStars forums peaked to over one million.

DotA received a lot of commercial attention in 2008, with The Casual Collective releasing the flash game Minions. Gas Powered Games also released the first standalone (if short lived) title in the genre: Demigod. In late 2009, Riot Games (employing Steve Feak as a games designer) released League of Legends, pioneering the term “MOBA”.  Also in 2009, IceFrog was hired by the Valve Corporation to design a sequel to the original DotA map.

In 2010, S2 Games released the game Heroes of Newerth, whose gameplay and aesthetic was heavily influenced by DotA AllStars. That same year, Valve announced the development of DotA 2 and secured all the franchise’s intellectual property rights. Blizzard Entertainment revealed at Blizzcon 2010 its intentions to release a DotA map for StarCraft II.  In 2012, Blizzard settled a dispute with Valve over the usage of the DotAtrademark, initially calling the game Blizzard All-Stars, and eventually was released in 2015 as Heroes of the Storm.  Hi-Rez Studios released it’s own take on the MOBA genre in 2014 with the game Smite. Rather than the RTS format that MOBAs were known for, Smite is played in a third person perspective. The game also used mythological creatures and gods as their playable champions instead of the champion types that were prevalent in LoL or DotA. However, not all MOBAs reached that same level of success. On March 26, 2015, Turbine released Infinite Crisis, which featured characters from DC’s comic book series. Even with its use of popular heroes like Batman and Wonder Woman the game was shut down in August of the same year.

By November 2015, the MOBA genre took almost 31% of total PC gameplay in the world and it shows no signs of slowing down. One of the driving forces in its popularity is the eSports industry. MOBAs like League of Legends and Dota 2 now account over five billion minutes of content viewed on Twitch every month.  Just browsing streams by game, the top games being viewed on Twitch are almost always League of Legends and DotA 2.  The traditional isometric view of most MOBAs allow for easy viewing,  adding the appeal of eSports.  With the ease of watching a match, fans can watch elite players in both professional games and in solo queue via Twitch. Streaming gives a sense of “all inclusiveness” to the fans of the genre, regardless of their skill level.

Images © 2016 Blizzard Entertainment, Hi-Rez Studios Riot Games, and Valve