"Artifact", the "Dota 2" card game, is available now

There are probably several reasons why Valve has stopped creating regular new video games. Gabe Newell and his friends had to focus more on Steam, a monopoly on digital PC game sales. The company wanted to get into the hardware with things like Virtual Reality and Steam Machines. And if you did games like Half life and PortalYou may also want to stop while you are ahead, instead of not meeting the dizzying expectations.

But I personally blame Dota 2. Since Valve started publishing this free sequel to the original MOBA mod, a lot more money has started to be paid to Gordon Freeman. So it's no surprise that the brand new valve game you can buy now, Artifact, is a trading card game derived from Dota 2.

Artifact turns Dota 2 in a collectible card game, and the adaptation is more meta than what you expected. After all, the original dota was a Warcraft mod, and Blizzard later managed to turn Warcraft in the digital card game home. So with Artifact, a Blizzard mod sequel becomes a card game after the success of the Blizzard card game based on the original moddé game. It's like poetry, it rhymes.

But what's fascinating about Artifact is that he also finds clever ways to transform the reputed impenetrable mechanics of Dota 2 and MOBA in general in accessible card game concepts. Your skills will be transferred. You have to worry about the specific powers of heroes, destroy towers, stay in the right line, use items and mana, and manage hordes of weak monsters. It looks really smart, and it should be considered as designed by Richard Garfield, CCG legend, creator of Magic: the rally.

Artifact is now available on PC, Mac and Linux for $ 20. But like home Expect what it actually explodes when it launches on iOS and Android in 2019. To learn more about Valve, read the abandoned plot of Half-Life 2: Episode 3 and help us determine who actually owns Steam.com.