14 DAY TRIAL // Whenever we hear of another MOBA game being in production, the general consensus is to roll our eyes at yet another developer trying to make it in one of the hottest and most explosive genres on Earth.
There is a lot of competition on the market of multiplayer online battle arena games, and there is not much room, especially not at the top. Riot Games is completely dominating with League of Legends, followed by Valve's Dota 2, a very distant second.
But for all the talk regarding saturation and the insane loyalty of each title's fans, it seems that there is still room in that lucrative space, as attested by video game research firm EEDAR.
The company has revealed that the MOBA genre is PC gaming's fastest growing market, predicting a massive increase over the course of 2015, even overtaking the massively multiplayer online role-playing game genre.
Apparently, the battle for MOBA market share is not a zero sum game as many would have you think, but instead the pie is ever-growing, which means that there is plenty of room for more to get a piece.
EEDAR writes that MOBA titles have performed exceptionally well, recording immense growth and helping to legitimize the free-to-play business model, as Games Industry reports.
EA may have rushed to cancel Dawngate
The company points to League of Legends and Dota 2 as the main forces behind the huge growth of the market in 2014, and believes that other future entrants, such as Blizzard Entertainment's Heroes of the Storm and Turbine's Infinite Crisis, will bring new players to the table and expand the genre's audience, rather than cannibalize it.
Furthermore, the company has revealed that 36 percent of all recorded revenue for the MOBA games involved in the study consists of purely cosmetic items such as costumes and skins, and has outlined some of the weaknesses of each of the titles.
MOBA competitors should apparently watch out for League of Legends' highly toxic community, which is cited as a key weakness for the product, as well as the very steep learning curve involved with picking up Dota 2.
In addition to this, EEDAR has pointed out that Heroes of the Storm's design prevents players from getting the feeling of power and accomplishment witnessed in other games when carrying their team.