The Chinese Dota 2 scene has been experiencing a slump in recent years. Amidst ongoing discussions about the reasons behind the decline, Team Secret’s veteran captain Puppey has weighed in with his thoughts on Gorgc’s stream.
Puppey attributed China’s underwhelming tournament results to the increasing popularity of streaming as a profession in the region. According to Puppey, this trend has resulted in many talented Dota 2 players in China choosing to become streamers instead of pursuing a professional career, leading to a decrease in the overall talent pool in the country.
“I feel like every Chinese Dota 2 player just dreams of streaming,” Puppey said. “In China, they earn 20 times the number we get to earn from streaming.”
As an example, Puppey mentioned Jiang “YYF” Cen, who won The International 2012 and continued competing actively until 2014. Since then, YYF transitioned into one of China’s most lucrative Dota 2 streamers, “chilling with his 15 million money bags a year,” according to Puppey.
While Puppey addressed the number of players exiting competitive Dota 2, he also argued that this wasn’t entirely bad for the scene. For streaming to outperform professional play in terms of earnings, there must be a healthy and thriving Dota 2 scene that would tune into watching these streamers.
Puppey expressed how he didn’t appreciate people dumbing down the situation and claiming the Chinese Dota 2 scene was struggling due to other games like League of Legends and mobile gaming. “If a guy can just stream and make millions of dollars every year, that means that they have a good scene,” Puppey said.
The conversation took a darker turn after Gorgc started asking about earning differences between streaming in the west and China, to which Puppey replied with a single word, corruption.
“From the facts that I do know, some streaming platforms were taken down for faking their numbers,” Puppey replied. “Every time someone shows me a Chinese streaming website, it’s a new website.”
While veteran professional players like YYF, Ame, and Sccc are earning huge amounts of money through streaming, their absence has caused the Chinese Dota 2 scene to lag behind its competitors, and this looks like a trend that might not reverse any time soon.
