Maelstorm on the fall of Chinese cybersport in Dota 2

Commentator Vladimir Maelstorm Kuzminov discussed the decline of the Chinese pro scene in Dota 2. The main reason for this he called the lack of influx of new players. Vladimir told about the roots of this problem in his Telegram channel. In the post, he broke down the main theses concerning this topic.

In 2021, the Chinese authorities issued a law prohibiting teenagers from playing computer games for more than three hours a week. The shortage of young talent from China in the pro scene is attributed to this law. Vladimir commented that:

The whole government thing is a flop and is easily circumvented and bypassed, it generally doesn't get in the way.

Another popular reason is the closure of Perfect World, the Chinese servers in Dota 2. They're not really closed, they're just not popular with the Chinese themselves.

They are not closed at all, just because of the small number of Chinese players, everyone plays on Asian servers. Kind of like the servers of Eastern Europe, which are not really used by progamers.

The really probable problem Maelstorm called the fact that Chinese teams have not won The International for 7 years.

Yes! That's one of the problems. The community stopped believing that you can win TI and make a lot of money, stopped believing that it makes sense to compete with other regions. We, in turn, got a huge boost after the 10th inta, which is still shaking the region to this day.

The last time China took TI in 2016, then the first place was taken by Wings Gaming. Recall that a player from that squad, Zhang y` Liping, is now playing at The International 2023, and has a chance to become a two-time tournament champion.

Another significant problem is contracts that put players at a disadvantage. Chinese organizations only sign long-term contracts for a minimum of three years, which essentially enslaves cybersports players, Vladimir said

Organizations in China don't let you sign a contract for less than three years. You're in slavery if you agree, the only reason why niu was able to leave VG is because the VG boss said "oh I'm done, I'm disbanding the team". Lack of flexibility scares new players a lot.

Kuzminov summarized his arguments with the story that personal computers are losing popularity as a platform for video games, and smartphones and mobile gaming have taken their place in China. At the same time, Maelstorm hopes that the Chinese pro scene will still flourish.

In general, the main reason is the lack of this influx, and the problem here is not even the game, but the PLATFORM, it's the fact that the PC itself is losing popularity, which is sad to me. Why? First of all because I still have a hard time accepting mobile gameplay, well, it's hard. For me, PC is everything. Besides, as I said to Dove, even though our regions are separated, we feel this loss very much, everyone who watches and is interested in Dota feels the lack of strong China very much, and it's good that at least 2 of their teams still look extremely powerful. And at least they have some young players here.