2014 Dota 2 Championship Has Biggest Prize Pool in Esports History

Mike Hoffman

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Sep 25, 2013
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2014 Dota 2 Championship Has Biggest Prize Pool in Esports History


The International 2014, the Dota 2 championship, [a href="http://www.dota2.com/international/compendium/%22"]approaches $4 million[/a] in prize money.

In July, 16 Dota 2 teams will play for the biggest prize pool in esports history. The large prize pool is a result of player purchases of The Compendium, a virtual, interactive book that tracks tournament statistics and sometimes rewards player with cosmetic, in-game items. Each $10 Compendium purchase contributes $2.50 to the prize money for the Dota 2 international tournament.

Valve released the Compendium for purchase on May 9th and started the International 2014 prize pool at $1.6 million. Thanks to player purchases of Compendiums, that prize money has increased to nearly $4 million at the time of this article.

Beyond offering greater monetary prizes to the best Dota 2 players in the world this July, Valve includes a number of rewards for the community as stretch goals are reached. Players have already unlocked prizes such as a new game mode and chat emoticons, but five of the thirteen stretch goals remain. At this point, the maximum stretch goal of $6 million actually seems attainable.

The International 2014 will take place from July 18-21 at Key Arena in Seattle. Tickets to the event were sold out within an hour, but hundreds of thousands of viewers are expected to watch the tournament live, if viewership of The International 2013 is any indication.

Source: [a href="http://www.dota2.com/international/compendium/%22"]dota2.com[/a]

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The Wykydtron

"Emotions are very important!"
Sep 23, 2010
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And people used to say you can't earn a living off playing video games. That's a lot of money too, even for extravagant tournament standards. I guess you could even say that no one has ever done that? No one has ever done that in the history of DOTA?

[sub][sub]Sorry, had to[/sub][/sub]
 

synobal

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Jun 8, 2011
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I fully expect the prize pool to hit 5 million this year. I know I'm going to have a blast watching Ti4 regardless though.
 

softclocks

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Mar 7, 2014
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Man I wish they would calm down with the TI prizes, try to divide some of that money among other tournaments.
 

HavoK 09

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softclocks said:
Man I wish they would calm down with the TI prizes, try to divide some of that money among other tournaments.
Why should they? There's already other tournaments that use the same method has valve's with compendium milestones. TI is just bigger and with much better rewards for players so thats why people with shed so much cash into 1 big tournament.
 

HavoK 09

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softclocks said:
Man I wish they would calm down with the TI prizes, try to divide some of that money among other tournaments.
Why should they? There's already other tournaments that use the same method has valve's with compendium milestones. TI is just bigger and with much better rewards for players so thats why people with shed so much cash into 1 big tournament.
 

james.sponge

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And with all that money Valve is still incapable of actually finishing the game, remaining hero ports and custom game modes are still to be released.
 

Epic_Bubble

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I am super proud that E-Sports can boast such a prize pool.

My only grip however is that is tends to be so top heavy that even teams that make top 6 will get barely anything compared to the winner (which is fine but it means teams rely more on getting sponsors than tournament money)
 

teebeeohh

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Epic_Bubble said:
I am super proud that E-Sports can boast such a prize pool.

My only grip however is that is tends to be so top heavy that even teams that make top 6 will get barely anything compared to the winner (which is fine but it means teams rely more on getting sponsors than tournament money)
one of the things most people want valve to do with the extra money is spread it among all the teams at the event, since just getting there is a huge achievement. if they decided to give the bottom 8 teams(who got nothing last year) 50k each they still would have the biggest price pool ever to spread among the top 8 teams.

oh and valve just casually made 7 million dollars, even if most of that covers the cost of running the event, could they maybe hire a guy to curate their store?
 

wolf_isthebest

the Insane
Mar 4, 2009
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MCerberus said:
Is it just me or is the International and the LCS in a prize money arms race?
It's not an arms race. It's Russia vs Crimea at this point :))

http://www.esportsearnings.com/tournaments
 

MCerberus

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wolf_isthebest said:
MCerberus said:
Is it just me or is the International and the LCS in a prize money arms race?
It's not an arms race. It's Russia vs Crimea at this point :))

http://www.esportsearnings.com/tournaments
The chart doesn't take into account that LCS teams are salaried as well.
 

gnihton

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Wasn't the prize pool for one of League's season 3 tourneys $8,000,000?

It annoys me that when any site reports on dota, they seem to conveniently forget that LoL exists.

Nvm, I'm completely wrong.
 

NuclearKangaroo

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im surprised Valve has found a way to reward both customers and people playing in the tournament

also they just earned almost 12 million dollars, so theres also that
 

Itsthefuzz

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Apr 1, 2010
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gnihton said:
Wasn't the prize pool for one of League's season 3 tourneys $8,000,000?

It annoys me that when any site reports on dota, they seem to conveniently forget that LoL exists.

Nvm, I'm completely wrong.
Ironic considering the newsie who posted this article has a picture of Akali. I guess it's a lesson not to assume. Because you know what happens when you assume...
 

SomeLameStuff

What type of steak are you?
Apr 26, 2009
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softclocks said:
Man I wish they would calm down with the TI prizes, try to divide some of that money among other tournaments.
Valve only runs one International per year, the others are from other organisations, so there's no need to divide up the prize pool.

On another note, I'm completely supporting Fnatic (as usual). Yes, they probably won't win, but after four years of standing behind them and playing with them on occasion, I'm not budging in my support.
 

softclocks

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SomeLameStuff said:
softclocks said:
Man I wish they would calm down with the TI prizes, try to divide some of that money among other tournaments.
Valve only runs one International per year, the others are from other organisations, so there's no need to divide up the prize pool.
It's not good for the scene.

It's not as bad as it was around TI1 and 2, but a lot of teams do buck-all year round since there's not enough stuff to keep them motivated.

Vici's like the only team that's shown conistent form...
 

Denamic

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softclocks said:
Man I wish they would calm down with the TI prizes, try to divide some of that money among other tournaments.
Great idea. Then we can get Nintendo to give money to Microsoft because Pokemon sells really well.

Edit: Sorry, guy I quoted originally. I quoted the wrong post.
 

gnihton

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Mar 18, 2012
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Itsthefuzz said:
Ironic considering the newsie who posted this article has a picture of Akali. I guess it's a lesson not to assume. Because you know what happens when you assume...
I've learnt that it's a safe assumption that the majority of people on this site don't know what they're talking about.

Besides, I think I may have been partially right. I think the total of all the prize pools of the season 3 tourneys was five or eight million, there were at least two or three, and one of them was a bit over $2,000,000.
 

SomeLameStuff

What type of steak are you?
Apr 26, 2009
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softclocks said:
SomeLameStuff said:
softclocks said:
Man I wish they would calm down with the TI prizes, try to divide some of that money among other tournaments.
Valve only runs one International per year, the others are from other organisations, so there's no need to divide up the prize pool.
It's not good for the scene.

It's not as bad as it was around TI1 and 2, but a lot of teams do buck-all year round since there's not enough stuff to keep them motivated.

Vici's like the only team that's shown conistent form...
Not enough? There's dozens of tournaments all year round. Starladder, Dreamhack Winter AND Summer, ESL, MLG TKO, WPC, D2CL, The GIGABYTE Challenge, the JoinDota league, the new Beyond The Summit tournament... you just have to look hard enough.