Blizzard Entertainment Joins the Dota genre wars

For those who do not know, DOTA is now a legitimate name for a video game genre.

The Dota genre mania

At Blizzcon 2010, Activision Blizzard announced that:

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty launched simultaneously on five continents and in 11 languages on July 27, and within two days, Blizzard gamers made it the biggest PC game launch of 2010 so far and the fastest selling strategy game launch of all time. A month after the game’s release, the StarCraft II community was already 3 million players strong -- and to date, gamers have taken each other on in more than 91 million StarCraft II ranked matches on Battle.net.

Today we're happy to announce that four new custom games currently being developed in the StarCraft II Editor by the game's development team are available for play for the first time on the convention floor. The four games, StarJeweled, Aiur Chef, Left 2 Die, and Blizzard DOTA, will be released for free to all StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty players in the months ahead. Also featured on the convention floor are three winning custom maps submitted by players in the community map-making contest.

In addition to that announcement, Blizzard described Blizzard DOTA:

Wage war with the most powerful heroes from Blizzard Entertainment’s game universes in this explosive new multiplayer game.

Looks like Heroes of Newerth and Valve's Dota 2 are in for a tough time.

Credits: Blizzard Entertainment and the Dota genre