Defense Of The Ancients Lead Developer Joins Valve

Pseudonymous developer IceFrog, four-year custodian of immensely popular WarCraft III mod DotA Allstars, announced this week he has been hired full-time by Valve Software. In a statement on PlayDotA.com, IceFrog said he is "leading a team at Valve" and added, "I finally have all the resources needed to do some very exciting stuff." The developer did not comment on whether his Valve project would be directly connected to Defense of the Ancients, whose DotA Allstars followup he inherited from creator Steve "Guinsoo" Feak in 2005. Feak is now employed by Riot Games, which is developing its own DOTA successor, League of Legends: Clash of Fates. Allstars itself is a variant of the original Defense of the Ancients, released in 2003 by mapmaker Eul. Regardless of his official Valve plans, IceFrog seems to be committed to the ongoing development of DOTA Allstars. "My goal and top priority in the future is to solve the surrounding issues that affect the DotA experience in order to allow it to reach new heights," he wrote. In a Q&A posted to his site just days prior to the Valve announcement, Icefrog explicitly confirmed his intention to continue his work on DotA. "I honestly can't see myself stopping anytime soon," he said. "It is the only game I really play so I get a lot of satisfaction out of working on it." Likely a factor in IceFrog's hiring is Valve's sizable contingent of enthusiastic DotA fans within its ranks, among them longtime employee Robin Walker -- himself a one-time modder as the co-creator of the original Team Fortress.