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Salaries, contracts, strict hours of practice, travelling, uniforms with sponsors, press conferences, photoshoots, touring, big checks, trophies...the life of a true professional gamer. A dream of DotA players that is a reality to others, such as Counter-Strike and Warcraft 3 professionals.

This dream is slowly coming true, the community is starting to expect and react normally to every tournament offering thousands of dollars for top contenders.

It makes you wonder, has DotA reached the professional level? What does the future hold? What will ESWC bring?

For a long time the difference between competitive DotA and other titles is the nature of a team. In Warcraft 3, players are signed with contracts, offered salaries and swapped around by other organizations.

It's just like sports, whatever team offers the most money is usually the deal that the player will take. In DotA, it has mostly been a group of close friends who share the same passion for the game. Now that is slowly starting to fade and DotA is starting to look like another business.

Team transitions

Russian powerhouse ARS-ART joins Swedish team, SK. This guy was a very close friend to his mates on the Virtus.Pro DotA team, they were even considered the best in the world. He would play at LAN centers with them all the time, competing in online tournaments such as Prime Defending or ready to dominate a LAN like ASUS.

Suddenly things fell apart, he wasn't happy anymore, so he picked up and left. SK Gaming grabbed him in a heartbeat, and to the community it was such an odd transition.

Virtus.Pro came back with a few changes of their own. For a long time fans have chanted for LightOfHeaven to join Virtus.Pro but people like the IHCS community knew that was very unlikely to happen.

It was apparent in the past that LoH didn't get along as well with the VP members so the switch was unexpected. If there's one thing that is for sure though, LightOfHeaven is very much passionate about playing DotA competitively so naturally he went with the best offer.

When Zenith made it's entrance into the international competitive DotA scene they received a tremendous amount of hype. The team was expected to show off Asia's true talent and ability to dominate in strategy games.

Unfortunately the team had a rocky start and things didn't always work out the way they wanted to. Lag played a major role in the problem and it was often crippling to the team. Zenith again, is like Virtus.Pro. Close friends who live near each other and play with each other at LAN's.

Now it appears that one of Zenith's strongest players, iceiceice has joined up with the Malaysian powerhouse, KingSurf. KingSurf has been in the spotlight for quite some time now, they are the only Asian team to have made it far in the Prime Defending playoffs.

The team is currently searching for a sponsor so they can travel to LAN events like ESWC and compete to show the community how they can perform without lag. With so much spotlight, potential and drive, this was a smart move by ice in his journey through competitive DotA.

Take the recent additions for example. Seven people on a roster seemed quite enough to forum trolls, but Maelk showed no hesitation in adding Fear and ezy to the team. This addition added so many opportunities and options, many of which were invisible to the spectators.

This allows more marketing for the team, not only in Europe but North America as well. It also grants them the ability to participate in almost every single tournament and league out there since there will be so much flexibility in playing time. Also, down the road who knows, we could even see two seperate teams.

Reshuffle in progress

To go along with previous points, the immense amount of roster changes already happening now can only continue in the future. The evolution of competitive DotA will start to mold and shape team's depending on a few circumstances.

SK was able to add a Russian player like ARS-ART because it will be beneficial to them. The team has very strong odds to win tournaments and they are already backed by one of the best sponsorships out there. Same story with MYM, with so many players in different demographics it poses an issue with sending a team to events, but with strong organizations that is possible.

This unfortunately creates an imbalance. It is seen in Warcraft 3, where certain organizations can afford to sign with players all over the world and other teams are stuck with searching for locals. Organizations primarily look for a group of condensed players to make it easier to plan travelling, but for bigger organizations they go for the biggest names!

Strapping down to business

In the early stages of competitive DotA there were only a few sponsors picking up DotA teams. Back in the day a sponsor for DotA meant a free headset and a tag added to their alias on bnet. It was nothing, mostly just a joke because DotA was only in miniscule competitions like CAL.

Once DotA LAN tournaments really started to take flight like Dreamhack, ASUS and Fire in Ice, sponsors starting popping out like baby bunny rabbits. Every organization wanted a piece of the newly discovered gold mine to themselves. Marketing is starting to flourish DotA in preperation for one of the world's biggest gaming event, ESWC.

PGS Poker Strategy addded BVG and "what?" thought the community. Why this team, why not one of the few unsponsored teams that are performing well like XsK? Simple. Marketing.

What is one key difference between BVG and XsK? BVG is a complete polish team and XsK has players from all over the globe. PGS likes waving their nation's flag, so obviously they would pick up a free ticket into the ESWC Grand Finals, because who else would qualify for Poland?

More and more tournaments are coming out, more and more sponsors are picking up teams and the competition is oozing out of every player's veins. Fire in Ice part two is under construction, teams are preparing for ESWC, Dreamhack Summer is approaching and everyone's busy.

We've got the online tournament's, competition, sponsorships and some LAN events in the bag. So what's in store for us next? DotA has already made a name for itself, now is it time for the next big step? ESWC will be almost like an official test to see if DotA can and become a true e-sport.