Recently Dota 2 has got an item called the 2015 International Compendium, which is purchasable from the Dota 2 store. Also recently Valve have put in place a set of gift restrictions on Dota 2 items so they can’t be traded, gifted or put into the game’s community market for a week after purchase. This has led to a lot of players who wanted to gift the compendium being forced to wait to do it.

Valve’s Daniel.J took the the Dota 2 subreddit to explain why though, and the answer makes sense: they’re fighting against credit card fraud. The week long period is in place to give Steam and the credit card companies enough time to stem the flow.

Daniel states that Valve are not a fan of having to restrict the gifting of items, but say that as of the moment they don’t have “a better solution” although they’re continuing to think of methods to hinder the problem without having an effect on legitimate buyers and users.

The fraudsters use stolen credit cards to buy the items, then resell them to other players at a discount. By the time the cards are discovered stolen, the items are in the market, the fraudster’s moved onto another account which can be new or stolen off another legitimate user and Valve are left picking up the pieces. It started in 2013 and ballooned during the last year, also leading to an increase in scam-related support requests where players had accounts stolen from them or never received their item. If too much credit card fraud occurs then Valve would be forced to not accept that method of payment anymore either.

It’s a sticky problem, one that Valve seem to be wrestling with. Hopefully the majority understand why this has happened and a better solution can be found soon to allow the gifting to re-commence.

Robot Entertainment’s new spin on the MOBA is in closed beta, and we were lucky enough to get our hands on a key. Here are Digmbot’s first impressions of the new game.

Check out Orcs Must Die Unchained here.

This past weekend, ESPN2 aired the finals of the Heroes Of The Storm “Heroes of the Dorm” tournament. Two teams of college students from Arizone State and Cal Berkely competed in Blizzard’s as yet unreleased MOBA, with Blizzard paying all four years of the winning team’s college tuition. The telecast was met with mixed reactions, with some lauding the placement of eSports on TV opposite NBA and MLB games, and others criticizing the idea, calling it ridiculously stupid. I won’t get into the frankly ignorant remarks made by ESPN’s own Colin Cowherd, although if you want to hear them for yourself click away.

In the aftermath of all the attention, much discussion has arisen about eSports and their validity. In particular, one article that caught my attention was from Re/Code, with the rather catchy headline “Video Games on ESPN? It’s Time to Stop Pretending eSports Are ‘Real’ Sports”, which you can find here. Now, being in journalism myself as well as a YouTuber, I’m no stranger to creating catchy headlines. Just look at the one you clicked on to get here. However, I find that it is at least helpful if the content of the article under that headline has at least some relationship to reality. Unfortunately in the case of the Re/Code piece, that didn’t happen.

The very idea that eSports are somehow pretending to be “real” sports is, frankly, ludicrous. As many readers will know, I head the eSports coverage for this site and have followed the eSports scene for many years. In all my time covering StarCraft, StarCraft II, League of Legends, DOTA2, Smite and other games, I have never once heard anyone involved with the eSports community refer to it as anything other than eSports or competitive gaming. Likewise, competitors are never referred to as athletes. Instead they are commonly referenced (by themselves as well as casters and media) as competitive gamers. The reason for this is simple: eSports/competitive gaming and pro gamer/competitive gamer are descriptive terms. They literally describe what the activity or participant is. So, you aren’t off to a good start when the title of your article contains a patently false statement.

Moving on, lets address the idea of channel surfers shouting “Nerds!” and flipping past the event. eSports doesn’t need TV. It never has, and never will.  As I write this article, there are 257,027 people watching eSports on Twitch.tv. On a Tuesday evening. There are no major events going on. These are simply people that want to watch eSports. We live in an on demand society. Cable TV is going the way of the dinosaur with subscriber numbers dropping consistently as people “cut the cord” and turn to Netflix, YouTube and Twitch for instant, tailor made entertainments. In the final analysis, all the investors in eSports see is viewer numbers. The International, DOTA2’s World Championship, turned in viewer numbers that are usually only rivaled by things like golf’s Masters, the Superbowl and the State of the Union address. The very concept that the eSports leagues care at all what people on network television think of their content is ludicrous. This also ties into another statement made in the Re/Code article: that calling eSports a sport is like calling a YouTube video a TV show. Nobody does that. And as I pointed out above, eSports doesn’t call itself a sport.

Indeed, the idea that Blizzard, Valve and Riot are attempting to turn the ground-up phenomenon of eSports into something bigger is completely accurate. If a bit outdated. StarCraft is huge. It has been for years. Likewise for Counterstrike, LoL and DOTA2. The phenomenon has already arrived. It’s sitting on Twitch.tv right now, commanding a massive amount of views. The idea that these companies somehow have an inferior complex and must try to get onto ESPN to validate some juvenile need to be accepted is laughable. Certainly, the advertising revenue from televising a few events hasn’t hurt the scene any. But it is no way critical to the survival, or even growth of eSports.

I’ll leave you with one final thought:

Last year, ESPN president John Skipper said of competitive gaming: “It’s not a sport – it’s a competition.” Bravo Mr. Skipper. You understand what the rest of us already understand. It is a competition. We don’t call it a sport. Nor does anyone else. I’m not in the habit of calling out other writers, but in this case I’ll make an exception and remind all those that are reading this of the number one rule of writing: Research. Or, rather, since the article in question contained numerous links to sources that I would certainly consider research…make sure you actually read and understand you research before making statements on it that will potentially endanger someone’s life due to asphyxia from hysterical laughter. I know I had a bit of trouble breathing after reading that article.

What do you think readers? Sound off in the comments below.

Smite publisher HiRez Studios is well known for having creative (and sometimes cringe inducing) skins in it’s third person MOBA. With each new patch, a handful of skins are usually dropped into the game along with a new god. While we will be covering Au Puch, the new god, later on we thought we’d share a little bit of skin goodness with you now.

Bastet, Egyptian Goddess of Cats has apparently been bitten by some strange radioactive J-Pop Spider as she has transformed into Kawaii Pop Bastet. Check out her main menu animation below!

Blizzard’s big MOBA Heroes of the Storm has been in various stages of completeness now for a while. Thankfully for all those still unable to play it, that is soon about to change. Blizzard’s given the game a proper release date.

The full version of the game will be released to the public on June 2nd, 2015. However if you can’t wait that long, they’re going to change the current closed beta to an open beta on May 19th which means you’ll be able to log in and play at last even if it’s not guaranteed that everything will bug-free.

In a press release Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said: “With its focus on team play and fast-paced fun, Heroes of the Storm is a fresh take on a very popular genre. We’ve built Heroes of the Storm in a way that makes it accessible to new players, but also challenging enough for veterans who really want to put their skills to the test. We can’t wait to see what Heroes brings to the co-op and competitive scenes once the Nexus opens up to everyone.”

Recent updates to Heroes’ closed beta has seen the addition of new maps and new characters such as Sylvanas Windrunner.