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5 Celebrities You Didn’t Know Are DOTA 2 Fanatics
These celebrities are living proof that video games are serious business
E-sports and video games are now an industry worth about a billion dollars. Among the most popular e-sports is DOTA 2, one of the biggest competitive video games with almost a dozen million dollars in prize winnings in the yearly tournament, The International, and has even been featured on ESPN. It’s so big, more people are playing it than you think, including celebrities you would have never guessed are fans of the game.
1. Asa Butterfield
Image credit N3rdbomber
Given that Butterfield played a tactically-brilliant cadet in Ender’s Game, having DOTA 2 as his favorite game is not surprising. The 19-year-old movie star shared in an interview that computer games have become a bonding activity for him and his father, whom he has co-created a racing app with called, Racing Blind. Butterfield mentions DOTA 2 as one of the games he plays regularly after finding out about it a few months after filming Ender’s Game. “I’ve spent many hours playing it, but it was time well spent,” he shares in a Reddit AMA. He’s such a fan that he even created an online group where he organizes matches with fellow players on Steam.
2. Jeremy Lin
Image credit Brook-lin
"Me, my brothers, my friends, we play [DOTA 2] when we have the time, all the time,” says the Brooklyn Nets Point Guard. Lin’s understanding of the game’s mechanics earned him a brief but sweet guest analyst spot in The International 5, where he mentions DOTA 2’s parallels to a basketball team. “It’s a 5-on-5, in basketball, you have your wings, your point guards and your big men,” shares Lin with the panel. “It’s the same thing here in [DOTA 2]. The higher level you go, the more it is all about teamwork.”
3. Mikael Daez @mikaeldaez
Image credit Yahoo
For Daez, DOTA 2 is like a bad habit that you just can’t quit. Daez already tried six years ago but as an avid video gamer, he simply couldn’t quit cold turkey and soon found himself back on the game he loves. Last 2014, the Kapuso star tweeted “My DOTA 2 MMR ranking is 2100. What’s yours?” MMR is the measurement of your skill ranking against other players and frankly speaking, his is not high (beginners are usually in the 1000 to 2000 range while professional players are usually at least 5000 MMR). But we’ve got to give him credit for finding the time to play between shoots for TV shows. He also mentioned that DOTA 2 has affected his sleeping habits, but not his social (or was it love) life.
4&5. Junemar Fajardo and Marc Pingris
Image credit Hoops.ph
These two PBA stars consider each other as brothers on and off the court. Their bonding activity of choice? A match of DOTA 2, preferably after practice. They go to their respective homes and immediately connect with each other once they reach their computers, where like in Gilas Pilipinas, they can be teammates and not adversaries. They have been affectionately dubbed, too as the “DOTA Boys” of the league by fans of both sports.
