Rise of the Ancients: the unstoppable march of the MOBA

http://media.edge-online.com/wp-cont...BA-610x343.jpgThey may have a name so nebulous as to practically duck definition, but you’ll know one when you see one. MOBAs – multiplayer online battle arenas – are a peculiarity: a genre anecdotal evidence suggests many are daunted to try, but that nonetheless commands a larger userbase than any of the recent Call of Duties on 360, PS3 and PC combined.‘MOBA’ defines a subset of strategy games born from mods of Blizzard games Warcraft III and StarCraft, in which two teams of five face off on a near-symmetrical map. The subset has a few extra traditions: the map is split into lanes; players control heroes; armies of AI ‘creeps’ are produced without player input; and both teams have access to a ‘jungle’ area full of NPC enemies to be harvested for gold and experience points.The subset is growing at a staggering pace, outgrowing their realtime strategy roots and boasting user numbers that leave all games, in all genres on all platforms, in their wake. League Of Legends boasts more than 35 million players, with a peak concurrent player base of more than 5 million. Steam’s player base – that is, all of Steam, with its two-thousand-odd game catalogue – only just tips that figure.Dota 2, Valve’s own updated version of Defense Of The Ancients – itself the blueprint for modern MOBAs – looks set to ape LOL’s success. In its final days of invite-only beta testing the game was already the most played among Steam’s catalogue, with four times the players of second-place Team Fortress 2. Both games use a free-to-play model, with LOL unlocking each of its 100-plus heroes for a week at a time and charging a few pounds to keep them for regular play, while Dota 2 emphasises cosmetic enhancements for its heroes. When the player base is so vast, if only a small percentage of players pay it makes for a vast monetary return for developers.In an often-cynical industry, this return on investment is driving the development of the next generation of MOBAs. This year’s E3 was thick with the genre, with each iteration boasting only slight mechanical differentiation but a dramatic selection of themes. EA’s Dawngate aims to go back to what systems designer Alex Hutu describes as the “RTS roots of MOBAs”, introducing ‘economy nodes’ for capture. The Creative Assembly announced Total War Arena, a ten-vs-ten multiplayer game that sounds markedly MOBA-ish. Sins Of A Dark Age is a PvP MOBA-like from Ironclad Games, creator of space RTS Sins Of A Solar Empire. And the Warner Bros game Infinite Crisis is a MOBA set in the DC Comics universe, developed by MMORPG specialist Turbine.

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