With an astonishing prize pot of $10.9 million, last year's Valve-sponsored Dota 2 tournament The International was officially the most lucrative in e-sports, topping the likes of the League of Legends World Championships with its comparatively meagre $2 million in prizes. This year's Dota 2 tournament has just broken that record again, with $11.5 million (~£7.5 million) in prize money on offer—and that's set to go up even further before the tournament begins.
What's most interesting about The International's prize pot is just how little of it has come from Valve itself. The company injected just $1.6 million of the total, with the rest coming from a crowdfunded 25 percent share of sales of the Compendium, a digital companion/programme that includes in-game items, cosmetic enhancements, challenges, and fantasy football-like predictions. While the basic compendium costs a reasonable $10 (£6), Valve's got quite the skill for up-selling, encouraging people to spend more cash to level up their compendiums and increase the overall prize pot to unlock more rewards. There's even a $28 (£18) premium version of the compendium that automatically includes all the rewards up to level 50.
Last year, it wasn't until well into fundraising that The International broke $10 million. This time, there are still a whole two months left until the tournament begins, which makes it quite likely that Dota 2 fans will get their hands on the Special Axe Immortal and Longform comic stretch goal that unlocks when the prize pot reaches a cool $15 million (~£10 million). There's quite the pressure for the 16 teams that make it to the finals of The International, then: Last year's winners Newbee took home just over $5 million. This year, if the prize pool is split the same way, the winning team could be taking home $7.5 million or more.
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