Why Is DOTA moving away from Battle pass model?

Valve is commemorating the 10th anniversary of Dota 2 and how? The developer is breaking away from the tradition by eliminating the Battle Pass model from the game. The battle pass (originally known as a Compendium) is meant to accompany and fund the prize pool for every year’s International tournament, however, this year Valve announced that won’t be the case. 

Why Is DOTA moving away from Battle pass model?

For More consistent and regular updates

Valve announced the news through a post to the Dota 2 blog named “Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future.” The developer said that the Dota 2 battle pass had advanced “to encompass just about any content we produce for Dota over the year”, which created “a tremendously exciting time in Dota,” however, it also meant that “the rest of the year [felt] barren by comparison”.

Hence, Valve ran an experiment, wherein they used the development resources, that they would otherwise use in developing the battle pass for The International 2023, to “put them towards more speculative updates, including features and content that couldn’t fit into a Battle Pass”. Valve admitted that the experiment was successful and gave birth to Dota 2’s New Frontiers update. This update was so great that it made the game Dota 3.

Because players never buy the battle pass

In the blog post Valve also revealed that most Dota players do not ever buy a Battle Pass and thus do not get any rewards. On the contrary, with the UI improvements and new client features, every Dota player gets the opportunity to explore the new map, play with the newer items, and accidentally die to a Tormentor.

Valve received an affirmative community response on the New Frontiers update, thus getting the “confidence that working less on cosmetic content for the Battle Pass and more on a variety of exciting updates is the right long-term path for Dota as both a game and a community,” according to the blog post.