MOBA

Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, a genre in which two teams of five players each control individual hero characters and compete to destroy the opposing team's base structure (the Nexus in League of Legends, the Ancient in Dota 2). MOBAs are characterised by their top-down camera perspective, three-lane map structure with jungle areas between lanes, last-hitting neutral and enemy creeps to earn gold, a deep itemisation system, and a large roster of asymmetric hero characters each with unique ability kits. The genre traces its origin to Defense of the Ancients (DotA), a WarCraft III custom map created by community modders in the early 2000s that became so popular Valve hired the lead developer to build Dota 2 (2013). League of Legends (Riot Games, 2009) became the world's most-played PC game by simplifying Dota's complexity for a broader audience. Mobile MOBAs, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Honor of Kings, and Wild Rift, have eclipsed their PC counterparts in player count across Southeast Asia and China. MOBAs have the steepest learning curves in gaming: understanding a 150+ hero roster, itemisation, vision control, macro rotation, and team composition theory requires hundreds of hours of study. Despite, or because of, this complexity, League of Legends and Dota 2 remain the cornerstones of competitive esports globally.