Valve will make its own, standalone version of Dota Auto Chess mod
While mod makers focus on new version with Dota stripped out.
Valve has announced it will make its own version of the immensely popular Dota Auto Chess mod.
What will become of the original mod is now unclear. Valve staff invited the mod's creators, Chinese team Drodo Studio, to meet with them in February. There were discussions about working together, a blog post from Valve states: "but we both came to the conclusion that Valve and Drodo could not work directly with each other for a variety of reasons.
"We ended up agreeing that we'll each build our own stand-alone version of the game, and support each other to the fullest."
Drodo is now working on its own version of Auto Chess, without any Dota branding. It's simply called Auto Chess. Valve has assisted in moving player accounts over - log in with your existing details and you'll get a pack of rewards to get you started.
Valve, meanwhile, is now building its official, standalone Dota Auto Chess for itself - "with Drodo's blessing".
It's a funny old situation. You can see Valve eyeing up the huge success of Auto Chess and wondering what to do about it. And, on the surface, this all seems to have been agreed perfectly amicably. But it's funny, too, because Dota is, of course, itself a community mod turned into an official Valve game. Although, in that case, Valve simply snapped up those behind it.