The International Dota 2 Championships 2023 Has An All-Time Low Prize Pool

The International Dota 2 Championships 2023, partially crowdfunded by fans, currently has an all-time low prize pool compared to the previous annual events. The $2.8 million prize pool is the lowest since the TI4, held in 2014, which stood at $5 million within this time frame. TI11, held in 2022, was the first event that did not exceed the previous year’s total, but even that had a prize pool of $9.8 million at this point.

The International is one of the most significant eSports events and is popular for having grandiose prize pools, with TI10, held in 2021, having a prize pool of $40 million. This low record is mainly due to Valve removing the battle pass system and replacing it with the Compendium. Not to mention, players already developed a bad taste for the event after seeing ggbet as last year’s event sponsor.

Less than two weeks ago, Valve announced that it would replace the battle pass system with the Compendium, whose sales will fund The International event. For the uninitiated, The International has always been partially crowdfunded by the players who purchase the battle pass. This year, though, it will be the Compendium, but its disappointing rewards have led to a considerable decline in sales.

The International prize always starts at $1.6 million, meaning that the Compendium has only been able to fund $1.2 million since its introduction. Compendium contributes 25% of its sales to support the event, but this year has been severely underwhelming, primarily due to its meager rewards and the weird bingo game. The price of its base version is $7.49, while the level-boosted version stands at $29.99.

As someone who has poured thousands of hours into the game, I can say that this is easily the worst rewards system one can hope for, and it beat even the low expectations I had. Although the prize pool is increasing by the hour, it is nigh impossible for it to surpass even TI4’s final figure of $10.9 million. Another reason for that is the crowdfunding period for TI12.

Usually, the period lasts until the end of the event, which generally means a few months. This year, the funding period started nearly a week ago, with the event scheduled to begin on October 12. It runs for around a month, so we can’t expect it to reach two months of funding period. This could be detrimental to the event, most likely making it the lowest prize pool we have seen in The International for a long time.

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Dota 2—one of the most popular MOBA games—was released on PC, Linux, and OS X in 2013. The game is a sequel to a community-created mod, Defense of the Ancients (DotA), and was developed and published by Valve. The International, Dota 2’s most significant annual event, was held at Gamescom 2011 to promote the game’s release.