Valve is finally taking a stand against the growing number of in-game advertisements seen at The International. The major Dota 2 event has become a breeding ground for distracting elements and branding from corporate partners utilising the systems that were first put in place to highlight teams and the players, and now the game developer is making moves to ensure this is no longer the case.
In a blog post, Valve notes: "Over the years, we've built a number of features into Dota to help celebrate these teams and players; unfortunately during that time we've seen those features increasingly being used not to showcase team or player identity, but rather to host advertisements. This year, to remove distracting elements and allow full focus on the game and the people playing it, we aren't going to have advertisements and sponsorships in-game at The International, including in team banners, base logos, and tags in player names."
Essentially, don't expect to see advertisements of any kind in-game at this year's event, meaning teams and esports organisations will likely have to explore alternate options to highlight their corporate and branded sponsors going forward.