The current craze in gaming is the MOBA game, short for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. The MOBA plays like the original Warcraft games, especially since the first and most prominent MOBA came out of a Warcraft 3 mod. For those of you loving readers that are unfamiliar with Warcraft, I’m sure you’ve heard of Street Fighter or Tekken or Mortal Kombat. Imagine taking stock characters, such as the ones from the aforementioned fighting games, and throwing that character into a hyperspeed version of a roleplaying game. You still kill things for money and experience points, and there is still a level cap, and there are still items to buy to help beef up your character, and as you progressively level, you may allocate skill points towards one of your preset skills.
Every character in the primary MOBA games has four abilities that must be leveled by way of experience points. Bloodline Champions, though a MOBA, does things a little differently. This article focuses on the general MOBA environment, though I am specifically referring to the very original, DoTA, and the follow-up games of LoL, HoN, and now the advent of DoTA 2. DoTA stands for Defense of The Ancients, LoL stands for League of Legends, and HoN stands for Heroes of Newarth. I’m sure you bright folks can then take a stab at what DoTA 2 means.
I’m really just interested in the sheer popularity of these games. DoTA 2, a game still in its beta stage, has professional paid tournaments going on. League of Legends is a popular upstart, a game that, with all of 3 years of experience, has continually leeched, gained, and flat out robbed fans at pro gaming events, drawing from venues such as Counterstrike, Starcraft, and other frequently hosted games. HoN is significantly smaller than the other two, but a unique flavor of champion choices still draws a crowd to it. Ultimately, the MOBA genre, one that is all of 8-9 years old, has in my opinion successfully risen to the most popular competitive E-sport genre. For anyone out there totally lost by now, E-sports are electronic sports, the competitive realm of major title games such as Starcraft and Counterstrike. Key events now showcase the real-time strategy game Starcraft, the first-person-shooter Counterstrike, and the super popular League of Legends. Some events show both League of Legends or DoTA 2, but many see them as competing games rather than games of the same genre.
The popularity of the MOBA may be attributed to the hybridization of popular game elements. It takes the strategy and speed of Starcraft and shrinks it down to having control over one hyper-leveling RPG hero/heroine. Personally, I attribute the success to how fun they are! Games last anywhere from 15 minutes to over 60 minute marathons, same as many other competitive genres. The average MOBA game lasts around 30 minutes, making them both enjoyable to play and to watch. For anyone interested, LoL is free-to-play, and both LoL and DoTA2 have frequent livestreams of games. Enjoy!
– M.B