The Successful Yet Untouched MOBA Genre
By Douglas Faulkner
Among all the video games that have found success in the industry over the years, none have shown the success of Esports quite like those that fall under the genre of multiplayer online battle arenas, better known as MOBAs.
Dota 2 is a sequel to an indie mod for the game Warcraft III, and it hosted a prize pool worth over $40 million back in 2021, the highest that year. The MOBA's modern competitor, League of Legends, started off as an indie game that drew inspiration from the original Dota. It has achieved some of the highest viewer counts in Esports history, peaking at 6.4 million last year.
Despite the success these games have seen though, the MOBA genre remains almost untouched by big-name publishers and developers. In the past decade, only Blizzard and The Pokemon Company have seemed to dip their toes in the genre, making Heroes of the Storm and Pokemon Unite respectively.
While Pokemon Unite is still receiving updates thanks to the recency of its conception, Heroes of the Storm stopped being supported by the company back in 2022. This is due to the game failing to retain player interest, a problem most MOBAs unfortunately run into.
Why the MOBAs of Blizzard and smaller developers have failed can be attributed to many factors. What is perhaps stifling the genre's overall growth the most is the free-to-play live service model.
This model is usually a great way to get people to try a game they would not be confident in purchasing, with the downside being no initial returns on investment. However, with the most popular games of the genre all being free-to-play, it has become too difficult to sell a MOBA using any other model, as people have very little reason to check out others.
The genre also lacks an influence across generations due to the recency of its creation. When you look at charts that showcase the viewership of Esports games, you will quickly notice a variety of shooter games making up the top 20.
The audience for games of the shooter genre is massive and spreads across multiple generations. Games like DOOM and Half-Life arose in the 1990s, and the overwhelming popularity of games like Halo and Call of Duty in the early 2000s has guaranteed the genre’s mark on gaming history.
The only well-known titles the MOBA genre had by 2013 were League of Legends and Dota 2, and what mark these games left initially was one that came with a stigma. The structure of these games can reward two kinds of players. Those who place their efforts in mastering battle, and those who focus on learning strategy.
While this kind of structure would ideally create a game where players cover each other’s weaknesses in playstyles, it instead crafts individuals who believe it is their way or the wrong way. This kind of mindset became common among the genre’s players. As a result, the community surrounding these games had been labeled as toxic and selfish amidst competitive games.
Every online game needs moderation to ensure the experience is not tainted by players like this, but implementing systems that handle these issues becomes much more troublesome for MOBAs. It is easy to implement a bot that bans players when they type egregious things. However, because there are a variety of personal strategies that players use, it is difficult to punish players based on what actions they take in a match.
One player can drag their whole team down by throwing themselves into fights they have little chance of winning. These players cannot be straight-up punished though, as they may just be inexperienced or lacking in technique. Even League of Legends is still trying to improve its methods of distributing punishments, having last updated its behavioral system back in May of last year.
The future of MOBAs is not hopeless though. The genre is seeing astounding success on mobile platforms, especially overseas in Asia.
Mobile MOBAs like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and Arena of Valor featured some of the highest viewership in esports last year despite their relative obscurity here in Western countries. To compete in the market, Riot Games even released a mobile port of their famous MOBA League of Legends back in 2020.
The genre may lack titles now, but as generations pass, more developers who grew up on these games will want to put their own spin on things. Perhaps one day we will even see a MOBA that surpasses the giants and shines a new light on the genre itself.