- Primary Subject: The MOBA Genre (General Gaming & Design Analysis / 2026 Landscape)
- Key Update: Amid the continuous competitive balancing updates for major titles like League of Legends and Dota 2, the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre remains a powerhouse of industry engagement despite severe entry barriers for newcomers.
- Status: Confirmed (Industry Standard)
- Last Verified: June 17, 2026
- Quick Answer: MOBAs push new players away due to an overwhelming learning curve featuring massive maps, complex item counters, and staggering, triple-digit character rosters.
When introducing online multiplayer games to someone who has never or barely played one, what would be the first genre you'd suggest? The most common answers would likely be first-person shooters, battle royals, hero shooters, or perhaps even MMORPGs.
It's easy to see why, as the ones mentioned have certain qualities that will attract and make people want to enjoy them for the long term, ensuring numerous hours of fun. And yet, there is one online multiplayer genre that, no matter how much you try to sell to someone to give it a go, will often result in reluctance or outright refusal: the MOBA.
MOBA stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, and many who've tried it or seen its gameplay even once would say that it's very hard to get into, which is why people tend to stay away from it. But what is it about the genre that pushes people away from it? To understand this, it's essential to understand how it's played.
The majority of MOBAs typically involve two teams of five, as seen in popular games like Dota 2, League of Legends, and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. The primary objective for each is to work together with your allies to penetrate the enemy's defenses and destroy their primary base structure. While that sounds simple enough, it's the many different combined aspects that contribute to the gameplay that turn people away from the genre.
First, the map. MOBAs tend to have a very large playing field, and it takes quite some time for players to get from one end to the next. Aside from enemy defenses and your own, sprawled across it are different dangers or terrain features that are intended to help or ruin each team's chances toward victory. This can be anything from monsters that can be taken on to portals that can make long-distance travel a little easier.
Because of how big the map can be and how much stuff there is to consider, all of it can overwhelm the minds of players, especially the new ones. Keeping up with it all can be quite a daunting task, and if you aren't able to do so, your chances of victory are significantly lowered. Understandably, nobody wants to have to keep thinking about everything that's happening, as they already have a hard enough time thinking and taking care of themselves, which is why some would opt to play another genre that's easier on the brain.
Aside from the map, another aspect that turns people away from MOBAs is the items. You can think of the genre similarly to an RPG, wherein you find the best equipment to fit your character and make them stronger. The big difference is that in a MOBA, no matter how much stronger you are with the set of items you have, there's a huge chance that it won't matter, and you could still lose very easily.
A good reason is that some require you to actively press a button to use them and gain their benefits. A character usually has at least six item slots, and if all of them are filled with equipment that requires manual activation, your fingers and brain will need to be fast enough to respond to the situation that needs them.
It's essential to know what needs to be used and when, but with how hectic fights in MOBAs are, this is not a simple task, as it often leads to panic. This can cause a player with many active items to use the wrong one or perhaps even none at all, and that can be absolutely disastrous.
You might think that to counteract that issue, you simply need to purchase items with passive benefits. While you could do so, that can be greatly detrimental to your team, as this leads to another reason: the rock-paper-scissors factor. Every item in a MOBA has its own uses, but each one has some form of counter. If you were to pick nothing but passive items with specific benefits, all the enemy has to do is find the right ones that can easily go against them.
So, the way to victory is to build items appropriate for your character and situation. However, even if you consider what's best, the enemy can still adapt to what you have, purchasing new items to counteract yours, which then forces you to do the same. The uncertainty and back-and-forth can be daunting and even tiring, and when people take a look at the list of items that they need to learn in a MOBA, it's no wonder that they'd rather play something else.
Now, for the last aspect of the genre that scares people from giving it a shot, it would have to be the number of characters there are to choose from. If you think fighting games have it bad with their 30 to 40 character roster, then you'll find the over one hundred options to choose from in a MOBA to be absolutely horrific.
Each one has its own unique set of skills and abilities, and much like the item situation, there is a rock-paper-scissors factor you need to consider, as they all have specific counters. So, since there are two teams of five and over a hundred characters to choose from, the number of possibilities can be quite staggering. You'll never really know who's going to be picked, and when you do see what the enemy has chosen, you still have to pick what synergies well with your team and what's good against theirs.
Your opponents will be doing the same, and knowing what the absolute best options are requires a lot of strategic thinking. This results in a huge mental battle before the game has even begun, and while it can be enjoyable, new players might feel otherwise. Learning every character in a MOBA is the key to increasing your odds at victory, but because of the staggering number, it's something a lot of people tend not to do.
This usually ends up with a player using someone with abilities far too complex for them to handle, or picking an option that's detrimental to the team. And when that happens, chances are that person won't be enjoying the game, as the enemy can take advantage of the situation to create a miserable losing experience. So, if someone isn't willing to learn, the chances of victory are slim, and not everybody is willing to do that if they have to study over more than a hundred characters.
In the end, MOBAs can be an extremely overwhelming genre that requires a lot of dedication to be good at, so it's no surprise that people would rather opt for something else that's far easier. Even if there are games that try to make it as simple as possible, like in the case of Pokemon Unite, there's still so much going on that it would make anyone reluctant to try. However, if a person is willing to put in the time and effort to learn, they'll find that it's one of the most enjoyable and satisfying genres despite the complexity.