By Brian Soong

What crosses your mind when you hear the term ‘Professional Dota Gamers’? A fat, long-haired, pimple-face with thick-rimmed specs eating a bag of chicken nuggets? Hold your orgasms:

Of course, not all e-sports athletes are this good looking. Stereotypes aside, pro Dota players have superhuman-like abilities that would make them dream employees for big companies. For example…

 

1) They can read your mind

I kid you not. In the competitive scene, to win is to see through your opponent’s moves, and since all pros do this the winning team is determined by who anticipates and maps out the most number of counter-steps. Predictive playing is more challenging and intense in a game of Dota than in a game of chess. Unconvinced? Ask Malaysia’s former national chess player, Chan Litt-Binn, also known as WinteR, the captain of the top local team MUFC. ‘Meh, only pros can do that because they are too immersed in the game, no way can casual players do that!’, you might say? Meet Chuan, one of the many pro-tier pub players.

Seriously, who wouldn’t want to hire a marketer who thinks 5 steps ahead of their competitors? Since they can read their competitors’ thoughts they can also read their teammates’, which makes them…

 

2) Play team games telepathically

Unless you are going Han Solo, in which you won’t even need to hire someone else, chances are you prefer employees who understand you and who are cooperative. Pro Dota players have no problem with tag teaming. Why? Because they are experienced team players. Very, very experienced. A game of Dota consists of 5 players in one team outsmarting the opposing team. Unless you are in a pub game, there’s no way you can win by forcing a one man show. Yes, they do have headphones and RaidCall, but when the actions move faster than the sound, wireless neural transmission is the best alternative. In a game where even a single second makes a tidal difference, team coordination must be executed seamlessly at all times, especially during critical moments such as during ganks and wars. Take this replay as an example:

Layman description for those of you who didn’t understand what happened: Na’Vi was attempting to break a tower when suddenly it was ambushed by IG from behind; they were surrounded and had no escape route.  With perfectly coordinated teamwork Na’vi annihilated the whole IG in front of their tower, without a single casualty. Now, imagine your competitors crying in mercy when your very own Fantastic Five whoop their asses in their own home markets.  Of course, to be able to achieve such a feat also means that pro Dota players have…

 

3) Impressive decision-making skills during critical situations

Quick! What would you do when hecklers start to cause trouble during the grand launch of your company’s latest flagship product? When the situation arouses panic, most people would not be able to think properly and make bad decisions, Dota pros would most likely remain unfazed and take the appropriate action needed. Why? Because they are trained for this. In competitions, wars often happen in a blink of an eye; they happen with such development speed that they look like random lights and sound fiestas to the untrained eyes.  Under such circumstances, players are expected to keep their cool, analyze the situation and decide on what to do best, as a team.

In this scenario as given earlier, your gaming employee-in-charge may pull off a play to make the hecklers look like a staged performance. After that he/she would secretly interrogate them in the backstage with water prisons and truth serums. Nah just kidding, only I would do that.

 

4) They are hungry learners and explorers

One of the most important aspects of an ideal employee is their willingness to learn. Give a common man a fish, he would probably just eat it. Give a Dota pro a fish, he would study its anatomy and attempt to fully utilize every single part of the fish. Why is this? Because the game has taught them to understand their assets inside out. Whenever new heroes, games or updates are added into the game, these hardcore gamers will spend hours or even days trying to investigate the new mechanics and possible techniques, combos and its impact on the game as a whole. Their feedback is so constructive that even Icefrog, the current and longest serving game developer, actually listens to these users and makes the necessary adjustments to the add-ons.

How does this benefit a company? Firstly, you have your in-house product reviewers that give kick-ass evaluations. If you put them into the sales and marketing team, do expect substantial revenue hikes as they target the most appropriate market segments and impress customers with their in-depth product knowledge. Give them an office in the management department, teach them for two weeks, and then you can sit back, enjoy a well brewed Earl Grey and trust them to run your company flawlessly.

 

5) They are smart and strategic

What makes Dota so interesting is that the fight begins even before the game starts. The standard game mode for all well-known competitions is the Captain’s Mode, where both teams ban and pick heroes from the pool in a fairly planned procedure. That being said, each team has to discuss with their captain and they have to think VERY carefully about which heroes they should use, which to sacrifice and what should be done to counter the opponents’ pick. Strategies. And of course for the rest of the game each player has to act in accordance to the situation and according to the game in a five men team. Items, skill choices and gold expenditure have to be allocated efficiently to maximize utility in order to gain a competitive advantage and overcome the enemies.

The wisdom involved in these processes are not commonly referred to as academic-smartness, but rather a far more complex form of situation analysis and logical reasoning. In other words: the aptitude beyond textbooks. The rest is self-explanatory: an academician or a person with highly-geared cognition, who is more beneficial to an employer?

Imagine your own business A-Team beating the A-Team. Very soon your firm shall ascend to the throne of market peak, where you majestically look down upon your trembling competitors and scoff at them. Noobs.

 

 

 

Dota terminology for Dota virgins 

Dota: short-form for Defense of the Ancient. Seriously? You want me to explain the game?

(If you still don’t know what it is, click here)

Pub game: Public games, aka where-your-teammates-are-all-idiots.

Gank: A civilized gaming term for gang-bang, which is the process of two or more characters ambushing one or more opponents with a high kill rate.