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[Thesis help] History of competitive Dota

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khy United States475 Posts September 24 2012 02:18 GMT #1 Hi TL! I'm an undergrad writing my senior thesis about the history of e-sports and the interactions between the Eastern and Western scenes in Dota and Starcraft, specifically from the perspective of communities in the United States. While I'm pretty well-versed in the history and the storylines of competitive Starcraft, I'm pretty new to Dota, having started to pay loose attention when the first International was announced. Knowing that there are some pretty avid Dota fans and players around TL, I'd like to ask for some help in researching competitive Dota. What community sites are there that I should bookmark? Are there any articles or knowledge bases that could help me establish a foundation to start discussing the communities surrounding the game? Feel free to post your own thoughts on the history of Dota, but for scholarly purposes I'm kind of uneasy about using forum posts as opposed to something like a Final Edit. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

instantdry Canada308 Posts September 24 2012 04:30 GMT #2 Check this out, gives a brief history of Dota but not really the competitive scene though.

theonemephisto United States409 Posts September 24 2012 06:44 GMT #3 I cringe every time I see someone doing something academic on "e-sports." It took until fairly recently for sports with as much history as Baseball and Soccer to gain even the slightest amount of academic acceptance, and those have been main-stream sports for over a century. If I were a professor in pretty much any department, I would have a lot of trouble taking anything about "e-sports" seriously.

Itsmedudeman United States19229 Posts September 24 2012 06:54 GMT #4 I think gosu gamers had a really good article on the history of dota. You can google it. There's like 6 parts or somethin.

sam!zdat United States5559 Posts September 24 2012 07:03 GMT #5 Have you talked to an academic advisor about this thesis? What department are you in?

Capped United Kingdom7236 Posts September 24 2012 12:39 GMT #6 Dont do it, pick something else your interested in. E-sports is suicide academically, you underestimate the small minds of people, especially educated ones.

khy United States475 Posts September 24 2012 23:51 GMT #7 Thanks for the suggestions, those really helped out. If there are any other resources out there, please let me know! To the people trying to dissuade me, my department and thesis advisers have been nothing but enthusiastic about the topic. One of them is an avid gamer herself and actually pushed me to investigate this topic. I'm an Asian Studies major.

sam!zdat United States5559 Posts September 25 2012 04:27 GMT #8 On September 25 2012 08:51 khy wrote:I'm an Asian Studies major. Ah, well then, very well. GLHF! :D

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