How player houses could increase the skill gap

Practice makes perfect. This is as true in Dota 2 as it is in every facet of life. Only through constantly playing together can teams achieve the kind of unity and cohesion that is vital for top tier competitive play. Getting five people together every day for several hours of practice and replay analysis can prove extremely difficult as work, school and life all vie for spare time. It can be particularly difficult for teams outside of Europe attempting to scrim in European hours, creating a big disadvantage for North American, Chinese and South East Asian teams as they contort their sleep schedules to fit all sorts of crazy hours.

 

The best solution for this is to create a player house. Assemble your team under one roof so they can maximise the amount of time spent practicing as a team without the many distractions of everyday life intruding. It is also an extremely expensive solution, and so is only an option for the largest of the sponsored professional teams. The problem is that this practice creates a feedback loop of skill gap growth. The best teams will then be getting the most practice increasing their advantage whilst the lower ranked teams struggle to find time to organise a team practice schedule causing the skill gap between the two to continually widen.

We already see this to some extent in the gap between established teams and those that are attempting to rise through the ranks. This leap from amateur to professional is already a very difficult gap to cross, and may only get larger as these practices become more common. We may see the pro scene evolve around this, and a split in the current top teams emerge.

As the top teams dedicate themselves to full time practice a big skill difference will emerge between them and the teams that, although they may be sponsored and highly skilled players either don’t make enough from Dota 2 to dedicate themselves to it full time. Even if they do make a reasonable income from just playing Dota, it is a risky decision to make the move to full time professional play without something like a degree to fall back on and can have serious impact on chances at a future career. Hell, people with degrees are already having enough trouble finding jobs without having a large gap in their resume that says: ‘Played video games’.

This skill gap will only increase as player trading becomes more widely practiced. We’ve already seen the beginnings of this with Na’Vi obtaining Funn1k from team Empire and KuroKy from Mousesports, two excellent players from highly competitive teams. In addition to the extra training time from a player house Na’vi has thrown a spanner into the plans of Mousesports and Empire by signing two of their best players. As competitive Dota 2 continues to grow, it is possible that larger organisations could castrate any rising teams by purchasing their best players.

These practices may sound like they will hurt the pro scene, but in fact will help it grow. A good example to draw parallels to is the English Premier League. We could see the biggest teams like LGD, Na’Vi or iG forming an A league where all teams have the resources to provide player houses and travel expenses whilst the smaller or unsponsored teams like nth that, whilst also highly skilled, lack either the time or money to put towards team houses or player purchases forming a B league, with collegiate or amateur leagues underneath that for teams who want to rise through the ranks to become professionals.

Problems will only arise if there is no growth amongst the top teams. If only five or so teams are able to afford perks like player trading, then these advantages could allow them to dominate the top of the professional scene but too small to support a separate A league, causing competition to stagnate as every tournament becomes a contest between these few teams and smaller teams are left to battle over the scraps.

 

I have to stress I don’t expect this will happen. The Dota 2 competitive scene is still in its infancy and as it grows, increases in sponsorship and prize money will make player houses and salaries more viable for teams to provide. There’s room in Dota 2 for teams of every skill level, and I hope it will grow to the point that everyone who want to play it professionally can make a decent living from it.