It looks like Valve’s The International Swag Bag is paying off as Dota 2 surpasses 1 million for the first time since 2019.
Valve introduced The International Swag Bag a week ago, giving Dota 2 players a free Arcana, Battle Pass, and Dota Plus. This has unsurprisingly led to a spike in players. But what wasn’t expected is the sheer amount of gamers flocking to the nearly decade-old MOBA.
What’s Dota 2 player count in 2022?
A few days ago, Dota 2 saw its peak player count reaching 1.03 million, according to Steam Charts. The year 2022 has recorded the highest number of live players since 2019.
This is the highest number of players in Dota 2 since early 2019. In February 2019, Dota 2 had 1.03 million peak players. This was another time in the classic game’s history that Dota 2 saw a large influx of players.
This time around, the dramatic influx in players is due to Valve’s introduction of The International Swag Bag. Valve seemed to offer this reward out of the blue as a celebration of The International’s finals. In response, players flocked to Dota 2 to claim their free stuff. So many people rushed to Dota 2 in October 2022, in fact, that the feature started malfunctioning at one point due to volume.
Valve most likely provided the prizes due to October’s abysmal player count. October had been one of the worst recent months for the game. Now, Dota 2 has a major influx of players looking to claim their prizes by competing in at least 10 matches during the season, which ends in January 2023.
Only time will tell how much this number will decline after the rewards are collected. Players may drop the game in favor of other popular MOBA titles once The International hype dies down. But, for now, the peak is surely pleasant.
