Valve cancels Dota 2 live audience and refunds ticket sales for The International 2021

Maybe they should come back to Sweden then, we just decided to drop all restrictions and pretend the pandemic is over even though we have several fatalities and hundreds of new cases every day. What can go wrong...

Maybe they should come back to Sweden then, we just decided to drop all restrictions and pretend the pandemic is over even though we have several fatalities and hundreds of new cases every day. What can go wrong...

Still massively better (all trends are going down) than the situation on Romania (all trends are going massively up), compare the trend curves:

Sweden: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

Romania: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/romania/

The difference most likely down to vaccination rates, Sweden have so far vaccinated 63.7% of the entire population while Romania 28.1%

Valve where idiots for first complaining that Sweden refused to host their event in the middle of a pandemic and trying to actually host one in Romania, just as I said back when they announced that they would switch.


Last edited by F.Ultra on 4 October 2021 at 10:25 am UTC

I still remember specialists in public health estimating the pandemic would roll for a couple months... Boy did they underestimate the public effort in not cooperating with the recommendations of health organizations.

Well, it was a bit optimistic for them to hope the good situation (back then) to last.
As soon as the things get better, people get sloppy and get infected again. Is like they have goldfish memory, Romania or anywhere else.

so just back to game topic please

These article comments are for commenting on the article and its subject matter, the pandemic being an inescapable factor in Valves decision to cancel the live audience. None of us like what is happening.

In my meaningless opinion, Valve did the right thing here, albeit after possibly doing the wrong thing twice. Allowing a live audience in the first place was probably not a good call, and moving to another country thinking the pandemic would be less of an issue there seems almost naive.

I care far more about Valve as a company than I do about this specific game or tournament. Making poor decisions seemingly ignorant of the state of the world is worrisome.

The difference most likely down to vaccination rates, Sweden have so far vaccinated 63.7% of the entire population while Romania 28.1%

Our vaccination rates are higher than Sweden's in Canada and we have a wave happening. It's the Delta variant; if that takes hold you need near complete vaccination coverage before it would decline with no other measures, because it's way more infectious. So the Swedes better hope they don't have any Delta.

And yeah, I think Valve made the right call here. Thinking of variants, an international gathering like that would bring them all; then they'd duke it out in a tournament and the most infectious would win. The prize? Getting to go back to all the countries the participants came from . . .


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 4 October 2021 at 5:10 pm UTC

Place when I life this year: excess number of deaths is above 100 000 and Covid kill 6 000, fight against covid kill much more humans that covid did, people were dying in hospitals because the doctors were afraid to help them (because of covid)

I suspect you are misinterpreting something. I am aware of many places where people are/were dying in hospitals because Covid patients (disproportionately anti-vaxxers) are taking up all the beds and there aren't enough staff to treat everyone. I have never heard of a single case of doctors refusing to treat people because they fear Covid--even though they do, in fact, fear it and are stressed as hell as a result. Although they probably fear it less now, because they're all vaccinated.
If you are not misinterpreting your information source, I suspect that instead your information source was slandering doctors with false allegations, a practice I disapprove of and which has become all too common during Covid among certain political groups.

1/2

Maybe they should come back to Sweden then, we just decided to drop all restrictions and pretend the pandemic is over even though we have several fatalities and hundreds of new cases every day. What can go wrong...

Have you seen the data on Sweden? (To be blunt: It looks like your most vulnerable -- obese, diabetic & old probably already were taken out, thus the lower death rates in the present)

https://covid.yanoagenda.com/countries/SE/

I still remember specialists in public health estimating the pandemic would roll for a couple months... Boy did they underestimate the public effort in not cooperating with the recommendations of health organizations.

Agree. Longest 3 weeks of my life. We can thank Wuhan China for that -- after all as I recall, they banned [ Domestic Flights ] but not [ International Flights ].

please stop talking about Covid just talk about game

No. In the context of the news article, the two are inseparable (Although I sympathize with your "burnout" on the topic).

what is happening in Australia show that restrictions doesn't work

Agree. In fact, as I recall, they found 1/3 of the White Tail Deer population were infected with SARS-nCOV-19-Wuhan-Pnumonia -- what this means is -- the kitten has become a cat & cat's out of the bag -- we can't put the cat back into the bag -- meaning, we can't vaccinate our way out of this -- the animals are infected & the best strategy would be to help the virus mutate into a weak and pathetic version of itself -- this occurs naturally over time (except the antibody dependent enhancement from the vaccines are making it more lethal {think what would happen to viruses if the whole planet took penicillin for a year straight -- we would make them antibody resistant}). They should have reserve vaccines for the vulnerable -- the elderly, those with heart problems, the diabetic, the obese, and other vulnerable groups -- at present for example suicide rates under age 18 from the lockdowns are exceeding the death rates to under 18 from the disease by a exponential amount. Imagine all the anti-social & psychotic behavioural damage we have done to the youngest generation from extreme isolation -- which I thought was a form of torture with imprisonment (solitary confinement). My point is -- events are the product of hysteria & reinforcing political power structure meanwhile doing untold damage -- our strategies aren't working as you pointed out with Australia.

2/2

As someone who has been interested in attending TI, even I would have been aware of the element of risk planning such a complex vacation in a pandemic. I am disappointed in Romania, however I understand they are doing what they think is right.

If I was Valve, I would probably have broken it up into different locations across the continents.

These circumstances are a challenge for companies and individuals alike -- adapt to survive.

Cancelling 2020 was a mistake. Cancelling 2021 would be a mistake. The show must go on. As it was comically pointed out -- host it on a Cruise ship if you have to. Host it in Flordia. Host it remotely (travel can be difficult) presently. But whatever you do -- do NOT cancel it.

People are more socially fragmented than ever before, and bringing them together over entertainment is exactly what the world needs, and a distraction that could bring a lot of wellness and happiness to people's lives. Drop ANY attendance fees, and do whatever it takes to make the game grow in this climate. Every climate creates new opportunity.

Good on Valve to cancel. It's entertainment; no need to risk someone's health over tournament profits.

It isn't canceled. While there is no live audience, a 5-man team has coaches and tons of people graviting around it, there is 12 teams. Plus production, and so on.

No audience kind of sucks, but it's also the right call. The issues with teams (ie Team Aster) testing positives may found sources in pre-flight times (then in their home countries), or on PGL's (the orginizer that Valve has hired) watch. IIRC they are there for like 3 weeks now (so it'd fall on PGL. Yet do note I'm pretty disppointed that Valve went again "hands off" despite the whole thing going on).

Cancelling 2020 was a mistake. Cancelling 2021 would be a mistake. [...]

People are more socially fragmented than ever before, and bringing them together over entertainment is exactly what the world needs, and a distraction that could bring a lot of wellness and happiness to people's lives. Drop ANY attendance fees, and do whatever it takes to make the game grow in this climate. Every climate creates new opportunity.

While I disagree on some of the parts from the rest of the message on the topic, I'd stick to this: Hell, even if it's just 100% free battlepass and paying out more than a few channels and what's not (like Frogged TV to do more like during the Disneyland Major and less their own thing) to advertise the event, I'm down for it. The game has way too many good things, storylines, castings, personalities and nerd population, the kind that will tell you about the game, that move and all the little details, the kind that fucking love their game, it brings people together.


Last edited by MisterPaytwick on 4 October 2021 at 10:34 pm UTC

Agree. Longest 3 weeks of my life. We can thank Wuhan China for that -- after all as I recall, they banned [ Domestic Flights ] but not [ International Flights ].

To be fair, I don't think they anticipated how incompetent most other countries in the world would be in dealing with it.

what is happening in Australia show that restrictions doesn't work

Agree. In fact, as I recall, they found 1/3 of the White Tail Deer population were infected with SARS-nCOV-19-Wuhan-Pnumonia -- what this means is -- the kitten has become a cat & cat's out of the bag -- we can't put the cat back into the bag -- meaning, we can't vaccinate our way out of this

We may not, quite, be able to vaccinate our way out of this . . . but certainly in Canada right now, in terms of hospitalization and death it's a pandemic almost entirely of the unvaccinated.
But the idea that restrictions don't work is ludicrous. Various countries have in fact successfully used restrictions to entirely wipe the virus out within their borders, and quickly wipe it out again every time it shows up. Some of these are authoritarian countries such as China, but others are democratic, such as Taiwan, and still others are parliamentary democracies on the British model in the Anglosphere, like New Zealand.
The core methodology that works seems to be
--Draconian but localized restrictions and quarantines wherever an outbreak occurs
--Matched with strong supports to those being restricted, so they don't starve, lose their homes etc. and can generally afford to actually follow the restrictions
--Vigorous contact tracing of everyone found to be infected; quarantines of the contacts
--Keep these draconian restrictions on until all cases die out, which takes a few weeks. Then you can return entirely to normal because there are zero cases!

(My own country has not done this, it's been doing what most of the world does: As much as the authorities can get away with before business starts squalling that it's not making enough money, which means restrictions are never strong enough to wipe the virus out, they just "bend the curve" down, and then get dropped so it can start bending back up again, lather, rinse and repeat. This does not beat the virus. It does lead to far fewer deaths all told than just saying "Oh, to heck with the virus, full speed ahead!" though--and I know this is unfashionable in some circles these days, but I think fewer people dying of disease is better than more people dying of disease)

The Covid zero approach that actually works has not been followed in many countries largely because of resistance from business; ironically, countries that follow it have suffered far less economic damage than either the typical-middle-road countries or the "Oh, just let it spread!" countries like Brazil.

-- the animals are infected & the best strategy would be to help the virus mutate into a weak and pathetic version of itself -- this occurs naturally over time (except the antibody dependent enhancement from the vaccines are making it more lethal {think what would happen to viruses if the whole planet took penicillin for a year straight -- we would make them antibody resistant}).

This is not really the case. Some viruses sometimes have evolutionary pressures that push them towards becoming less deadly. It is not at all clear that Covid and its variant family are among them.
Further, the pressures introduced by vaccines are towards becoming different enough in the right ways for the vaccine not to block them--but that is not the same thing as "more deadly". Similarly, everyone taking penicillin for a year straight would push bacteria (but not viruses) towards being more antibiotic resistant . . . but not towards being more inherently deadly, or more infectious, or antibody resistant. It would be a bad idea, but not because the bacteria would work any better against our immune systems.
Both for viruses and bacteria, it's really not about "stronger" or "weaker" . . . it's more like a skill tree. They level up lots of different traits, and the "bypass a vaccine" trait is distinct from the "spread faster" trait or the "make people cough more" trait or the "trigger a fever" trait. But more than that, everything a microbe does has a cost--you don't find germs that are good at everything, because every trait is a tradeoff--is it worth the energy it takes to make the trait work? If you have too many at once, you get too heavy/expensive to reproduce fast.

Place when I life this year: excess number of deaths is above 100 000 and Covid kill 6 000

That just means that in your country there is a huge under-reporting of covid cases. In every single country where there are great covid reporting the covid cases is very very close to the excess deaths number so if the same would not apply to your country then your country is an extreme outlier, so the most logically conclusion, unless reasonable evidence of the contrary can be produced, is that it's simply under-reporting of covid cases.

Have you seen the data on Sweden? (To be blunt: It looks like your most vulnerable -- obese, diabetic & old probably already were taken out, thus the lower death rates in the present)

Not in the slightest, remember that we have "only" 14.868 deaths out of a population of 11M, we have a lot of more obese, diabetic and old people than that.

There are far too many confounders to say anything regarding country vs country when it comes to covid, perhaps in a decade or so when the scientists have managed to go through all the numbers it's possible to say anything but not today.