The Point - DOTA Might Ruin Your Life

What was edited out at the beginning?

I'm still playing WoW but my life has transformed me into a much more casual WoW player. Also Danny when you have X amount of free time, do you want to spend X playing the one time-consuming monster (DotA) or take that chance to finish a bunch of 12-3oh single player games?

I have uninstalled the game like 5 times and after a few days I reinstall it. i need help. so far in the past year the longest i went without playing it was 2 months. I'm surprised i still manage to get laid at all with his game in my life. someone save me.

This is actually exactly why I never started playing WOW in the first place. Back in college i had a friend that devoted days, if not weeks, at a time to WOW (even passing up the usual weekend drunken escapades). And after seeing this and knowing how addicted I have become to games in the past (mainly the Final Fantasy series) I decided that if I wanted ANY hope of graduating with a degree or even have some form of social interaction with a female for the next 4 years I need to stay as far from this game as I can.

What was that at 3:50? can any one tell me

Oh its a MMO. Ya I had the same problem as Danny with WoW. After 6 months of it controlling my life I also went cold turkey with it and just removed my credit card from my account, played it til the last day of the sub then it just went dead. I'm not going back down that path again.

I was playing the Diablo III demo yesterday, it managed to take up about 6 hours of my day. After realizing I had lost track of time, I just deleted it and said I'm never going to buy that game. I guess I found my gaming limit after the WoW era of my life.

I'm probably one of the only people that didn't know what Dota 2 was before I clicked on this video

well i never play games i dont like, i try if i dont like them i dont play them more. Many of my friends they dont do that actually!

Spot on, Danny.

I believe the problem of the "addiction" is not the game itself, but the lack of desire of going to the real world.

It's a very complex matter.

I hate games without a story. And the ones with story which cannot be completed, like every mmo. So I hate mmo's.

Good show master richie...... I mean Danny

Also got completely addicted to WOW in college where it basically took over my life. Still thought it was an awesome game when I decided to quit (at vanilla WOW) and even today many expansions later it looks like tons of fun, but am not gonna go anywhere near it. Its just way too much of a time sink and started affecting school/social life. Am glad to say I have never touched DOTA and still don't plan to. Its definitely possible to be a gamer and have a good social life, but.I think playing something like WOW or DOTA makes achieving it very very difficult.

Danny brings up some good points...keep the videos coming!

So I enjoy games, but I usually play games that have been out a few years. Mostly because of price reasons, but also because I usually don't have the time to devote to them. So I guess I am a casual gamer. Its not that I like the "mainstream" games, it just that I really want to avoid the feeling I get after blowing an entire day on a game. The same can be said of movies or binging on TV shows. So I created a rule. 2 hours a day for entertainment. It can be TV ,a movie ,or video games. Any more and I hate myself a little. For whatever reason, books don't fall into this rule. Even if very entertaining, I have never felt like I was unproductive if I spent numerous hours in a book.

Anyway, its good to see this issue is starting to be recognized by gamers. I lost a few friends to WOW in college. They dropped out, moved away, some of them we never heard from again. I don't want to use the word addiction (because chemical addiction is a much more potent thing) but it definitely was a problem for them.

Good show danny !

It's really interesting how social life can pull you out of the games. I grew up with my parents complaining about the amount of time I spent playing, yet I never stopped until I started to go out with my school friends, after a while (in my seventeens) I learnt that it's perfectly possible to have this "double life", though you may play less, I'm sure you'll enjoy games much more, after all, we all have to find a balance in our lives. Great show by the way Danny.

DotA 2 can become an obsession like many games.

Games can be played for different reasons: escapism, competition, social (?). But you have to use moderation for that real life stuff.

If anyone is looking to get into DotA 2 realize that generally it will be the only game you will play for a while and learn how to deal with the highs and lows of the matches. This game is mainly played for Competition and feeling of accomplishment when you play well facing tough odds. And pro tip with families--only play a game when you have roughly 45 mins-1 hour where you won't be summoned for anything.

Almost all my steam "friends" are actually DotA 2 players that I gathered by a mic and a good attitude. Much better with "friends" win or lose.

Great show! these videos are actually worth watching :)

Brilliant video - totally agree! Thanks Danny.

yea man keep cranking out the videos, really well done

I would consider myself to be a hardcore gamer, but I will not touch games like WOW or DOTA because I know that I would love it. Admittedly my social life is lacking, but if I were to pick up WOW, it would die all together. My roommate plays WOW and I don't see him for several days on end. I am a hardcore gamer and even I am not a big enough nerd to play MMORPGs. No offense to MMORPG players

Such an interesting point in Danny pointing it out that some "casual gamers" don't love games less. I LOVE games, yet my job, school, and girlfriend have forced me into the "casual" crowd. I feel the biggest factor hindering the growth of video games today is exactly that element. There are plenty of people like me that were born gamers but, simply don't have the time to play them anymore... :(

gah crap... now im thinking of opening WOW again......

Love the show

Great show!!!!

That's right Dan ol Boy! You are right on the money!! Reason why i never understand guys who play DOTA these days... No offense!

Really like this show keep it going!!

I think there are just certain kinds of people that would enjoy playing Dota, those that wouldn't, and those that wouldn't but would still get addicted to it. Anyone in the third category needs to stay far away. Whenever anyone asks if I think they'd like playing, here's the checklist I give them:

1. Can you still have fun if you lose a match (because you will lose about 50% of the time)?

2. If someone is being a jerk (rarer these days, but it happens), can you mute them and move on, or will it ruin your day?

3. Do you have a mic? If you're talking in game, it's a lot easier to find people you enjoy playing with and just friend them to play whenever.

Beyond learning the basics and finding some friendly people to play with, it doesn't take much commitment to keep up your skills. Just focus on a couple of heroes and use them as your go-to so you always have a comfortable game to play if you want a more casual experience.

It really is an intriguing game with a lot of depth, and breaks so many classic rules of good game design it's shocking MOBAs work at all. But somehow they do. If you're not sure, just play some matches against bots and see how it feels. Especially if you can grab a friend or two and stomp all over your robotic foes. No commitment necessary.

Well to be perfectly honest I fail to see why he has such a trouble with Dota 2. The biggest problem in Dota or LoL or any other of the genre is the community. Filled with ragers and people that think they are pros and want to flame and blame their mistakes on anyone else. If you want to enjoy the game you definitely need to play with friends. It is a lot of fun to hop into a game as a group of 5 and talk about strategy and what not, whether you win or loose it doesn't matter, what matters is the great time you had with your friends. If he has so many friends that play and some that are even hardcore at it, then he could play with them and learn bit by bit without getting flamed by anyone.

Is bad for those of us that have no friends that play this. We have to hop into pubs and try to endure the assholes while fishing for nice people to play with. There are also a really active community in reddit at /r/dota2 where you can find people to play with and tons of help to get over the learning curve.

That farmers tan lol

Never got why people like MOBA games, it's the most boring gaming genre iv'e ever played, i just want to pound nails in my head just so i don't have to listen to the LoL and Dota 2 players, both games are the same and both are extreamly dull.

Next story could be about most rpg games. Especially about those based on that stupid formula: When you gain level or get some good item everybody around get tuffer too so basically you get nowhere.

I liked this, I liked this very much :D

MOAR

played long DOTA 2 long time ago (1year I think, when beta became available) and was terribly disappointed... what a crap :/

now when release all after long long waiting I tried it again... and realized its the same shit as it was, terrible quality and awful gameplay

LoL beats it!

yeah some blizz fans will play it anyway, but admit blizz lost his throne of games long ago...

Unfortunately, I also have played many games that I haven't enjoyed simply because everybody else around me seemed to be immensely into them. The GTA series has always been one of them. I've played all of them since the very first to GTA IV and have never liked any of them one bit.

But also, very rarely, this bad habbitt of mine has lead to me immensely enjoying a game I misunderstood at first, like the Fallout series. It used to bore the crap out of me but suddenly it "clicked" for me after going on and not giving up. Now I love all three in the series.

Completely agree but I play DOTA2 against medium bots because it's the limit of both my skills and time. Will I eventually jump into PvP matches, maybe...

This piece takes an unflinching look at one of the biggest open secrets of gamerkind and nudges uncomfortably close to describing -- and admitting -- addiction. This is one of those "soft white underbelly" subjects within our ranks and it takes a certain kind of bravery and an insider's insight to speak to it effectively.

You've touched on something important, yet kept it quick, breezy and approachable.

Excellent job, Danny.

I share the same feeling with Danny, I don't enjoy playing the game either, but I like to watch some DOTA2 pro matches there are really sick players ... they seem like they only play it and nothing else LOL

good video