EPTA few years back, PC shops were everywhere! LAN cafes were full of people playing cracked versions of Counter Strike and Warcraft 3 DotA. Other than that free-to-play MMOs were out in force, RAN Online, Ragnarok, RF, Rakion, etc. Most shops charged 20 pesos per hour ($.50 in today's conversion) and made booming business when people offered to host tournament in their establishment.
Many people believe that the Filipino gamers are not transitioning to DotA 2 and they are correct. Simply because it's not downloadable via torrent and it's hardware requirements are too much. It's even difficult to follow eSports in the country because of the limitations of the ISPs. Most DSL connections cost 1000 pesos or $25. Anymore is, in most cases, too much for many households. I consider my family to be among the upper 40% maybe even 30% but I am unable to watch streams in resolutions greater than 240p. It becomes impossible when my family uses the internet with me.
Imagine playing DotA or SC2 at home with decent ping then, all of a sudden, it rises to 1000ms when somebody else in the household switches on their mobile wi-fi and browses Facebook. That plus the expenses of buying a new PC in the country is unmanageable.
I'm not trying to bash at my countrymen but it's a sad truth. If someone plays DotA 2 here, they must probably be part of the upper 40% as the expenses for buying a PC with decent internet is quite massive compared to the state of living in the country. If one really wants, he or she can go to Mineski who is the most famous PC gaming shop franchise and has PCs capable of playing high end games at the cost of $1.50 per hour (imagine being able to buy a cheeseburger and a regular burger from McDonald's with that).
Thank you for reading! This is my first post! Please be nice :D
![[image loading]](http://tristancafe.com/new/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/dota-kahit-baha.jpg)
