What would you possibly do with over $36 million sitting in your pocket?
That’s a question that those who are aiming to compete at Valve‘s official Dota 2 event, The International, are going to need to answer as TI now approaches its tenth iteration with a record-shattering record of $34,360,000 being offered up for grabs.
TI10 doesn’t even have a set date yet due to COVID-19 ruining sports as we know it, making offline events impossible and offering strange circumstances for multiple esports as matches are played online with varying latency, leaving players to struggle against alleged DDoS attacks and power outages in critical matches.
The prize pool is gigantic, in large part due to the fact that it is crowd-funded from players and fans of Dota 2 purchasing Battle Passes (25% of each battle pass purchased goes into the fund); a mechanic that Rocket League has copied (a portion of MTX goes towards funding tournaments for Psyonix) and it’s likely going to continue to grow until TI10 is actually played.
This means that every day that passes where TI isn’t played, it will break its record again as the prize pool continues to be paid into.
Using this metric, it’s easy to see how wildly popular Dota 2 continues to be, regardless of whatever flavor of the week may be heralded as the ‘new best thing’. Dota 2 has staying power, and it is unlikely to waver for years, if not decades. It also means that Valve likely made around $110,000,000 on Battle Pass purchases alone in the past year.
Some have bizarrely taken to calling out Fortnite and Epic Games for not setting the record in their cup; a record that they have set earlier with $30,000,000 in the prize pool, as though it’s a measuring contest between which of the two studios can better reward the top 1% of players for grinding out the most games.
Effectively, Valve is offering players the chance once a year to instantly retire from work as millionaires by playing a video game; they just have to be the best at that video game and get signed to a team that is willing to compete.
Others are taking the opportunity to ask for healthier Valve-funded grassroots tournaments within Counter-Strike to encourage a healthy T2/3 scene that is necessary to funnel high-skilled talent into the top tier of competitive play.
Regardless of the why and how it is an impressively life-changing sum of money that will be offered in the current TI10 to a winning roster. It will also be fiercely competed for, almost guaranteeing a spicy tournament if and when it finally comes to fruition.
