What is the Dota 2 Short Film Contest, you ask? Every year around The International, Valve puts up a bunch of prize money for the best ~1 minute long videos. Filmmakers submit their entries into the Workshop, where they’re voted on by the community. This year, ten are nominated for the final round of voting (and guaranteed at least $500!). The top three take home $25,000, $10,000, and $5,000.
LAST YEAR’S WINNERS:
This one was my personal favorite last year!
Low Priority, Tower Destroyers, The Sacrifice
This year’s short film contest is already brimming with amazing submissions.
As of now, we’re still in the main voting phase – here’s a link to a Reddit thread listing entries for 2016, major thanks to /u/coronaria for compiling it! Here are a couple of my favorite entries for 2016:
I like the simple animation yet compelling story.
There are plenty more to watch!
I love the Short Film Contest. The level of effort put into the contest entries always amazes me. Competitions that encourage creativity and delve into the lore behind the game give the community something productive to engage with (instead of complaining about the arcana vote for the hundreth time). This extra content is what takes Dota beyond just a popular F2P game and gives it depth, much like its parent game, WC3.
Good luck to all the contest participants this year – I’m looking forward to seeing the winners!