One of my absolute favorite features from DotA 2 is the ability to drop in and watch in-progress games that my friends are playing. I always thought this would be a little strange, but when I’m waiting for them to finish or we’re just hanging out in vent, it’s weirdly enjoyable to watch their games play out. For competitive players this also has obvious benefits. There are downsides, like having friends heckle you for events that transpired two minutes in the past. All the same, I think it’s a great feature and the fact that it can be so easily accessed via the Steam buddy list is awesome.

It sounds like Riot’s own spectator mode will host the same feature. RJCombo said on the official forums, “Yes. The feature currently on PBE allows you to drop-in to normal and ranked games in progress (on your friends list) as a spectator.” Good on you, Riot. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t expect Riot to get spectator mode right, and I gave up on waiting for it to release a long, long time ago. I am glad to know that they see the value in this kind of functionality though and that it might be closer than we all think.