In the wake of the ever steaming juggernaut of Dota 2, Valve effectively hammers the nail in the coffin of Gordon Freeman and can probably forget about single player all together. Many gamers fear it, yet it’s one of the most talked about and played games in the world. Competitions for the game are held around the globe, but the International – the World Cup of Dota 2 – is the biggest. Free to Play tells us the story of the game and it’s players as they compete for a grand prize of $1 million. It seems a little self indulgent for Valve to create a documentary on their own game. Dota 2 isn’t exactly pick up and play, either – It’ll take more than the 85 minute running time to really get a grasp of the entire game, it’s 100+ heroes and the differences between them all. So they wisely take the approach of summarising it within a few sentences, and do what good documentaries do when faced with dealing with a potentially tedious and boring subject matter – focus on the human element. Many people’s first encounter with something like this would have been Kickstarter success, Indie Game: The Movie. Both films wisely keep the focus on three main players. In Free to Play, they are Benedict (HyHy), a fairly successful player from Singapore; Clinton (Fear), a softly-spoken gentleman who is considered the best in the West; and Danil (Dendi), a talented individual who seems to master anything he turns his attention to. The documentary captivates from the start – If you didn’t already know, competitive gaming is huge. Skeptics will be stunned at the crowds, and even die-hard games like you or I might be left reeling at the screaming fans. For the winners, there’s a lot of money to be made here. One legendary team, EHOME, seem to win every competition they enter – Their manager freely admits that he pushes them like a mid 90’s football manager, telling them if they bring home anything other than first place, they’ll scrap it at the airport. For all intents and purposes, they are shown as the villains here, if only because have been proven to be good multiple times. Our three focus points are all plucky underdogs – HyHy is considered one of the best players in his country, but his skill still stands in the shadow of the Chinese gaming heroes. Fear is one of the older players, who joins a European team despite being in the US, and his calm, considered tone makes him a father figure to many players. Danil’s family were one of the first to get a computer, and starts to double down on his gaming after a tragic loss in his family. All five of the tournament days in the International are interspersed with their home lives, and we learn their motivations, and what their family think about this whole ‘gaming’ thing. As you might expect, parents aren’t entirely happy with their children ‘sitting in front of that computer all day’, but they are given enough screen time to expand their points so they don’t become stereotypes. Benedict’s father, for example, sees this activity as too much focus on playing around, like he did when he was younger. He wishes he studied more so he didn’t have to graft on the docks for 12 hour days, and wants his son to come to this realisation too. One thing you can’t get away from is just how boring eSports matches are. There’s only so many crash zooms you can do on someone clicking a mouse before it gets boring, so Valve spice things up with custom animation for key moments in the battles. At it’s most technical, it can look a bit messy as loads of characters fill the screen, and frantic commentary delivers loads of Dota Jargon. Although I certainly got a kick out of the line “He’s turned into a Pig!’ These computer generated battles are the things that come across as the most confusing, but they are flashy and entertaining enough for the casual viewer. Despite it’s niche within a nerd culture, Free To Play is highly enjoyable even if you have no interest in competitive gaming – You could swap out Dota 2 for Football, and you’ll still be presented with a tale of people at the top of their game struggling to juggle life and their passion. The problem with competitive gaming is that people training rarely get salaries to do so. If they aren’t one of the top 9 players, they don’t get a single cent, often neglecting their loved ones in the process. While there are tragedies along the way, everything is treated with the respect it deserves.
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