Surprised? I doubt anyone will be. Valve have managed to gather what's now the single biggest prize pool for an event - ever. It's now absolutely massive.
Back in 2019, Epic Games held the title for the biggest prize pool across a tournament with Fortnite. Valve smashed that record not longer after with TI 2019 having a $34,330,069 prize pool. Records are breaking everywhere it seems, as once again it has been eclipsed. The International 10, now has a prize pool of $34,539,661 from the Battle Pass (plus other purchases like the Collector's Cache) and it's still going up with plenty of time to spare as Valve announced before that it will continue until September 19.
I couldn't imagine receiving the kinds of money these teams do during these tournaments, just blows the mind. Makes me curious how much Valve end up with too, since only 25% of the purchases go to the prize pool.
While this is going on, there's still no set date for when the tournament will happen. It was due this year, which of course was postponed due to COVID19. The Dota 2 team confirmed on Twitter, that no date is set yet:
In following how the pandemic has been developing globally, the recent increase in the unpredictability of COVID-19 means we can’t yet commit to new dates for TI10 and the DPC. We share your eagerness in returning to these events, and will announce updates as soon as we can.
You can play Dota 2 free on Steam.
Watching The International every year has been my Super Bowl, DOTA2 is a lot of fun. Their marketplace is great to you can build Skins and buy and sell most wearable items for only a few pennies each. Valve has been wicked smart these years.
Edit: I would have supported them canceling the in-person main event and doing the whole playoffs with social distancing -- say the 5 team members and captain in isolated booths, but then I know that would seriously modify the event. I watch it on stream anyways -- I've looked into going in person and its a few thousand to go and get hotel reservations, food, transportation, etc...
Last edited by ElectricPrism on 28 August 2020 at 5:36 pm UTC
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