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Games

Valve Reveals 'Dota' Card Game to Disappointed Fans at The International

Nobody asked for this, apparently

With the increasingly "cringe comedy" direction that Dota 2 and Valve are taking with the tone of their tournaments, it's entirely possible that Valve knew that their reveal of a new collectible card game at The International would not play well with the crowd. So it's Valve anticipated the audibly crushing wave of disappointment that greeted the teaser for Artifact last night during The International. But wow were Dota fans not having what Valve was selling last night.

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Now we do have good reason to believe the source of this video is an incredibly duplicitous Subterfuge player, but that said this footage appears to be legitimate. A small, sad little wave of hype dies in an outcry of disappointment and then stony silence punctuated by a few half-hearted claps. If you had to pin down the exact moment the crowd turns, its at the reveal of "The Dota Card Game" text.

Which is to say, it's hard to get people excited about your card game these days. The successful ones often leave people feeling like they're trapped in a dysfunctional relationship, and the unsuccessful ones just seem like they're part of the glut.

Day[9] did have some interesting things to say about it on stream, particularly in that Artifact sounds like it's trying to replicate some of the three-lane game dynamics of Dota 2 in a card game format, making it more than just a Dota skin draped over yet another deckbuilder.

Still, it sounds like Valve has a lot of work to do preparing the ground for Artifact's release in 2018, because The International crowd clearly needs a lot of convincing before they get on board.