Considering how both HoN and LoL, in anticipation of DotA2, are making changes to differentiatethemselves from the original DotA - I don't think you can really even directly compare the three anymore, or at least soon enough you won't be able to. All of them will have their own audiences and different mechanics that will be enough to separate them from each other and ultimatively everyone will accept that they are different games within the same genre, instead of being stubborn and drawing comparisons all the time.

Kolapz has just hit this right on the head. As a player of all three games, the differentiations are becoming more and more apparent. They're all the same genre, but the execution of mechanics are becoming more and more distinct as time goes on.

It must be doing something right otherwise it wouldn't have as many players as it does.

Well, i play LoL but i only play it because its a good break from competitive CS.. i think many people play LoL just for the fun factor.. i really dont see it as a good competitive game because the skill ceiling is quite low compaired to other great Esport games.. which i consider to be SC, CS, QL and maybe one or two others that have very very high skill ceilings and it takes a lot of practice to get good at.

Whoever thinks DotA and all the other games in the genre have a low skill ceiling is wrong and clueless.

@rocketAus and i think that u fail at considering...

think of all the actions and various things you need to do to be a successful starcraft player. Yet league of legends has what.. 6 - 8 or so buttons you need to "master"... Im not saying LoL takes "no skill" im merely saying the skill level and skill ceiling is laughable when you compare it to other games that are considered esports.

It is funny how quite a few very good HoN players have started playing LoL.

Sure, the non-ranked games are casual. But like any game, the competitive scene is far from slow.

I could say HoN is casual, because it has a casual mode. But the high end MMR stuff is far from casual!

Same idea applies here. Or any game really.

Like 1.6 gamers switched to source because it was easier?

They switch because of money. Nothing else. just like FourCourt said.. CS 1.6 players moved to source when it was out because CGS came in and offered a nice prize pool... and what happened when CGS failed and went broke? all the 1.6ers moved from source back to 1.6.

LoL is getting all these tourneys and more money put into it lately for the simple reason that sponsors obviously want to sponsor games that have a huge player base because with a huge player base comes a huge spectator base which in turn is revenue for the sponsor.

Not in Norway at least, bad 1.6 players switched and became the best in source quite easily.

But it was because of money obviously, because they couldn't compete with 1.6 players.