Why is Chinese Dota so stagnant?

Even to the untrained eye, the Chinese Dota 2 scene stands out as one that hasn’t really budged since the days when they were winning titles at The International. It’s been a whole nine years (going on 10 once August rolls around) since the last time a Chinese Dota club lifted the Aegis of Champions, with the legendary and highly beloved squad Wings Gaming being the most recent Chinese winners.

That was all the way back in 2016. Others like LGD Gaming and Xtreme Gaming have come close since then — but at this point in the game’s lifespan, it doesn’t seem like China will ever see another trophy added to the nation’s cabinet. So, what gives? Why is the Chinese Dota scene so stagnant now?

Trapped in the past

There is one glaringly obvious problem that has plagued Chinese Dota for years and years now: the egregious lack of young players entering the scene. The scene is definitely still alive in a way despite this, but it’s essentially kept on life support by teams trading rosters with each other over and over again until something finally clicks.

Anyone who’s been following the scene even on a surface level over the last several years will notice that basically every tier 1 Chinese team is now composed of the same names that have been around since 2017 or so. The ironic thing about all this is that this technically constitutes continuity — but entirely the wrong kind.

Passing players around in a giant circle that seems to go on forever is not a recipe for success, especially as many of the players in question are getting up there in age relative to when professional gamers tend to peak. Essentially, the Chinese scene is stuck in a time loop that they can’t get themselves out of, which is still true even when you factor in tier 2 teams like YB.Tearlaments or Team Refuser.

Echoing consequences

Of course, it hardly helps that whatever new blood was supposed to fill the gaps years ago are now banned from professional play entirely due to their involvement in matchfixing scandals, most of which occurred when the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) was still around. Lower skilled teams were betting against themselves and losing games on purpose in order to get a quick injection of cash, hoping that they wouldn’t get caught for their suspicious play in the process.

Due to esports integrity violations, the following players are now Valve and Perfect World-banned. The details are as follows. In cases of a discrepancy, the Chinese version of this announcement shall prevail (available here: https://t.co/cXMQKlvANd) pic.twitter.com/qair8d68OJ

— Perfect World Esports (@PWRDEsports) March 9, 2023

Those that kept their noses clean are, you guessed it, the same players that are just playing ring around the rosie every year after The International. With any potential up-and-coming talent throwing their careers away in order to fix games, there’s little wonder that we’re not seeing young prospects coming up to the top level from tier 2 tournaments.

And speaking of gambling, the fact that gambling is illegal in China obviously means that betting sponsors cannot be involved in the local scene in any way. Loathe as I am to admit it, such sponsors are now an integral part of the competitive scene, and many top level teams would simply not be able to stay afloat today without them.

No sponsors, no party. It’s yet more irony piled on top of what’s already there: Chinese teams tend to commit foul play, but they’re not even legally allowed to gamble in any form outside of state-sponsored lotteries. Without the kind of funding that betting sites can offer, it becomes less financially viable to run a Dota team in the first place. Just look at how LGD, EHOME, Azure Ray, Royal Never Give Up, and other such marquee clubs from the country have stayed away from Dota for some time now.

As a footnote to this, the Chinese government’s laws on gaming for citizens under the age of 18 also hamper any real growth in that segment, whether or not we’re talking about Dota in particular. Reaching the pinnacle of Dota as a professional player takes years of dedication and pouring an ungodly amount of time into climbing the ranked ladder, just like any other esports title out there.

And without access to that kind of time, any would-be young prodigies would simply be unable to make it to the top before they get older.

For honor

But ultimately, even if you take away the two major points, nothing else proves China’s stagnation as a Dota 2 country more than these three words: Honor of Kings — and to a slightly lesser extent, League of Legends. According to Esports Charts, the inaugural Honor of Kings World Cup in 2025 saw a peak viewership of 653,309 during the grand finals — about four times as much as what Clavision Masters 2025 had at 168,652.

Worse still, those numbers for Clavision Masters capped out as such even after a Chinese team, Tidebound, made it to the championship match and won the whole tournament.

Mobile games like Honor of Kings are just way more accessible by their very nature as titles that anyone can pick up and play as long as they have a smartphone. Dota on the other hand is and will forever be a PC-only game, which automatically limits its potential audience to those that can afford a gaming PC in the first place. And with hardware prices already skyrocketing since last year, building a gaming PC is just a hard sell to most people right now — including Chinese citizens.

I’ll admit that I know next to nothing about Honor of Kings, but the sheer magnitude of its popularity in China simply cannot be denied.

It’s a compounding issue, too. No new blood and no real success for the handful of Chinese veterans still playing today means that it’s pretty much impossible to drum up any interest in Dota over there. Add to that the fact that Valve doesn’t actively advertise the game at all versus the highly aggressive marketing of Honor of Kings and League of Legends, and you can easily see why there’s such a huge gap here.

The game is just not as popular there anymore, period. It’s an unfortunate reality for a country that helped shape professional Dota over the decades, but it’s called a reality for a reason.