DOTA 2 International Prize Pool Surges to Ten Million

You know me—or at least, you THINK you know me—I love me some Esports.  Ever since I started doing gaming journalism I’ve had an eye or three on the growing world of electronic sports, and I’ve been a stalwart crusader for their legitimacy.   Or at least, I’ve tried to be.  For all the good my opinion has ever done anything.

Anyway.  Today, E-Sports has broken some new ground, and we have the folks over at Valve and the fans of DOTA 2 to thank for it.  As you may know, DOTA 2 has a huge fanbase of dedicated players, and they have their own tournaments—the most prestigious of which, the International, starts at July 18^th and goes till the 21^st.  An amazing e-Sports event if there ever was one, but now there’s even more reason to keep an eye on the proceedings.

See, Valve has this thing called the Compendium.  It costs ten bucks, and when you buy one it automatically adds $250 dollars to the prize pool of the international: the more gamers buy, the bigger the steaks of the tournament, and the more stuff is unlocked within the compendium.  It’s a pretty cool system, but you’ll be interested to know that since purchasing started, the original $1.6 million dollar prize pool has grown to an astonishing 10 million.

For comparison’s sake: Last year, the International Prize Pool was almost $3 million.  The prize of the season 3 world championship of League of Legends was $2.5 million.   So a jump up to ten million is, frankly, astonishing for the world of E-Sports… heck, it’s even impressive in the world of TRADITIONAL sports.  Last year’s Superbowl winners netted $9.9 million.  World Championship Poker?  $8.3 Million.   It’s still a long ways away from the 35 million in the pool of the World Cup, but fundraising hasn’t stopped yet so it can still get there.  Maybe.

Either way, $10 million.  That’s huge.  The competition will be fierce, better fetch some popcorn.