Valve started the prize pool for its big Dota 2 tournament The International 3 with a very respectable $1.6 million. But to make teams Dote like they've never Doted before, Valve's kicking in 25% of sales from its $10 collector's chart-ish-sort-of-thing The Compendium. It's selling like nobody's business so the pool has now passed a cool $2 million, and Valve has added more "stretch goal" bonuses for Compendium owners.

Read more: Picking the next hero to add to Dota »

What do you do when your platform already sells and launches video games? Make the platform itself a video game, naturally. Valve announced the beta launch of "Steam Trading Cards" today. The collectible meta-game lets you upgrade your Steam profile by playing games and collecting and trading their associated (virtual) cards.

Read more: Currently supports Dota 2, Team Fortress 2 »

Valve has used Dota 2 to test all sorts of interesting doodads for professional gaming, from selling tickets to watch matches in an oh-so-slick spectator system to, heck, hosting a huge annual tournament. As third tourney approaches, Valve is launching The International Interactive Compendium, a social-y thing which'll let fans predict results together, win prizes, and vote on things like who plays in the all-star game.

Read more: Unlock cosmetic items »

"The International" is returning yet another year. Valve's annual Dota 2 tournament will be held in Seattle on August 7th, a few weeks before PAX Prime.

No prize pool has been announced on Dota 2's official website, but the winning team at last year's tourney took home $1 million.

Read more: Qualifying tournament coming soon »

You ruined everything, idiot. Uninstall Dota 2 now. Then take your hard drive out and beat yourself around the face and genitals with it. Then kill yourself. In real life. Or, pop up a player-written skill build and guide for your character in-game, pick up a few tips, and turn to bravely to face the terrifying and thrilling challenges of Dota.

Read more: Which skills to get and when »

One day, you'll be able to download groceries through Steam, ingesting the nutrients through a Steam Port at the base of your spine. While Valve is forever expanding the platform in pleasing ways, it's not quite there yet. Still, you can now read and write game guides on Steam, hosted on the Steam Community. This'll likely tie into the hints we've seen of in-game Dota 2 guides, then.

Read more: Get a-writin'! »

Now that Dota 2 is up to a whopping 96 characters, it's a fair bet that a good proportion of them are something of a mystery to most of its 3 million players. To help introduce you to a few more, without the fear of being stomped by people playing their best heroes, Valve added a new mode in yesterday's weekly patch that forces everyone to choose one of their least-played Doters.

Read more: Breaking players "out of their comfort zone" »

There's a lot to be excited for in 2013, and the Shacknews staff each have five games on their radar. The editorial team at Shacknews outlines their most anticipated games of 2013 individually. Next up, we've got cuss word expert Alice O'Connor's list of next year's titles.

Read more: Alice's picks for 2013 »

Actual Christmas is often a dreary, miserable affair, but in video games it's always beautifully snowy with merry hijinks galore. In short, virtual Christmas in Dota 2 is better than your fleshy Christmas can ever be, after the festive 'Greeviling' event launched last night.

Watch: How it's done »

Dota 2 may be making the transition to a new platform, as it grows bigger and better. Valve boss Gabe Newell says the company is currently testing the game on tablets, and hopes that faster devices will make a proper release possible.

Read more: Performance coming 'in the near future' »

Valve's three-day Dota-rama The International kicked off this morning, bringing 16 professional Dota 2 teams together to slug it out over a novelty over-sized cheque for $1 million. The game has come a long way since it was introduced to the world, and picked up oodles of new fans, so come on gang, let's watch some Dota!

Read more: Streamed in browsers and the free spectator client »

Dota 2 may still be in semi-closed beta, but it's already one of the most 'eSports'-friendly games going--in terms of the client, at least, as Dota is still terrifyingly opaque to casual observers. Valve yesterday launched a new update adding in-game pennants for fans to show their support for their favourite professional teams, and maybe scoop some unique items too.

Read more: Unique couriers for pennant wavers »

Valve is pushing the pro-gaming side of Dota 2 pretty hard, between its $1 million tournament The International, a documentary, and selling viewing passes for its fancy in-game spectator system. The developer's not quite ready to let everyone into the free-to-play game yet, but it has released a special spectator client all and sundry can download to watch matches.

Read more: Will become full client "once we expand server capacity" »

Valve is making Dota 2 with a distinct focus on eSports, hoping its new-old MOBA will join the likes of League of Legends with long-term players and audiences. To that end, it's producing a documentary on eSports, focusing on five professional gamers.

Watch: Dota 2 documentary teaser »

Valve has muttered and murmured about bringing Steam and its Source engine to Linux before, and now it's revealed the plan--port Steam and Left 4 Dead 2 to Ubuntu 12.04, then work from there. Steam will come to Linux in all its glory, and Valve's building a speedy OpenGL version of Source it can use for more of its games too.

Read more: No timeframe for when it'll launch »