Valve cracks down on 'wild west' of 3rd party battle passes and other real-money transactions for custom Dota 2 game modes

pcgamer.com:

As noted by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik, Valve has requested that all Dota 2 custom game makers cease real-money monetization in their creations by August 17. A number of popular modes for the juggernaut MOBA have already gone offline in response.

The custom game tools in Dota 2 gave rise to a vibrant modding scene, with the most notable example being autobattler genre progenitor Dota Auto Chess. Auto Chess was a straight-up phenomenon when it landed in 2019, and though a bit diminished these days, the genre it spawned is still chugging along.

Some custom games in the Dota 2 arcade possess real money monetization through third party platforms like Paypal or Patreon. Paying the developers outside the game earns you access to the usual microtransactions for cosmetics or, more contentiously, in-game advantages, as well as full-blown battle passes.

Dota 2 Arcade games fall under a non-commercial license, but the characteristically hands-off and laissez faire Valve did not act on the proliferation of real money transactions in the Dota 2 Arcade until now. It seems like a pretty easy call for Valve though, which has had to contend with similar grey market economies in Counter-Strike and TF2. Having players making PayPal transactions with a third party for changes to your own game seems like an untenable liability.

I've also noticed a general sense in the community that things had gotten out of hand with Arcade monetization. An r/DotA2 thread by KaylinaNemo in 2020 complains of being able to purchase abilities and items with real money in one custom game, and similar cries of «pay to win» seem to have dogged the Dota 2 arcade in recent years.

A post by Apprehensive-Tea5559 about a custom Dota 2 game being retracted in protest