The Dota 2 Short Film Contest has returned! The annual Short Film Contest pays tribute to The International 2024. It’s the event where Dota 2 fans, who happen to be animation experts, get the opportunity to create great storylines alongside polished animations.

With $25,000 on the line for a first-place finish, there’s a lot at stake at the Short Film Contest 2024.

How to participate in Dota 2 Short Film Contest 2024?

This year’s Short Film Contest comes with a new rule, necessarily in the current era of technology. It’s regarding the forbidden use of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation for submissions.

Banning AI-generated content

It seems that Valve is up to date with the latest technological advancement of generative AI, to have such a rule in a creativity contest. For the uninitiated, AI-generated videos using mere text prompts is already possible, and they are good quality at that too. OpenAI’s recent announcement on Sora, their state-of-the-art AI model for text-to-video generation, showcased its immense capabilities in video generation.

Additionally, other parties, both open-source and private entities in the AI field, are also participating in the AI arms race to train their own models.

Other standard rules in Dota 2 Short Film Contest

Alongside this new rule, the other rules are similar to past iterations. The important requirements to note are:

• Entries must be less than 90 seconds and at least 1080p in resolution.
• Entries must, of course, be about Dota 2, but the aesthetics can be in any form of animation or even live-action technique.
• Most Dota 2 hero models, intellectual property (IP) of Valve, are available to use. Whereas for non-Valve IP, the participants must be the copyright owner or have written permission from the owner of such IP. Note that any infringement of non-Valve IP will be disqualified.
• Entries must be new creations made specifically for Dota 2 Short Film Contest 2024 and be submitted to the Steam Workshop under the ‘Dota 2 – Short Film Contest 2024’ tag.

The rest of the requirements to adhere to are available on the official Dota 2 – Short Film Contest page.

Prize winnings at the Short Film Contest 2024

Similar to past iterations, first-place winner gets $25,000, followed by $10,000 for the second-place entry, $5,000 for the third-place entry, and a consolation prize of $500 for the fourth to tenth-place winners.

Last Year’s Contest Winners

To commemorate the hall of fame of last year’s top-three winners, we have “Chemical Rage” by 4fun in first place. The winning short film is about Phantom Assassin’s hallucination after drinking a bottle of Chemical Rage, causing him to kill his own allies in an unexpected plot twist.

‘Finish Pls‘ by Keller Max and ‘Anomidae‘ by GAME BREAKERS won second and third place, respectively.

Looking at these phenomenal films from last year, we have a lot to be excited about because the winners are based on the most-voted entry from the Dota 2 community. Stay tuned and visit the Steam Workshop to check out this year’s Short Film entries.