Comment by crazypyro

To be fair, DotA was a custom map made on a Blizzard game. Its a bit unfair to say it slipped through their fingers. Valve had a good enough reputation to secure the lead developer where other companies failed to. (S2 games and Riot games both tried to get Icefrog, the sole designer of DotA for the past few years, but they both failed to keep him around or even get him into the studios for talks). I think it took a special company, like Valve, to be able to recruit Icefrog and keep him happy.