Bad news, fans of getting rich incredibly slowly. Valve have disabled the selling of Dota 2 beta invites through the Steam Market. Previously, for a scant few pence, you were able to buy your way into the beta, bypassing the then £22.99 price tag of the Steam Store. But while there are still places to get invites for free, that they're starting to be phased out suggests we're another step closer to the game's official launch.



The removal was noticed by the folks behind the Steam Database site:



Wanted to get Dota 2 through the Steam Market? Well, you're out of luck. It's disabled and all listings are now slowly being removed.— Steam Database (@SteamDB) July 9, 2013



Last month, Valve wrote: "The first step we’ll be taking is to release a larger set of training features, and retire the existing Dota 2 Invites. The combination of these two things makes now the best time to use any remaining Dota 2 Invites you have to bring your friends in that are unfamiliar with the game. After that, we’ll start allowing all users to join in."



Last week, Valve vastly increased the game's tutorial, and added a new Limited Hero mode to help ease new players into the game.



Back in PC Gamer issue 254, we revealed that Dota 2 was set to be released before this August's International tournament. You can now read the entirety of our huge Dota 2 feature online.