The International 10 Finally Breaks the Prize Pool Record

It was bound to happen. With every passing day, people could see that the prize was going higher and higher and that eventually, The International 10 would exceed every prize pool in the history of Dota. It is now sitting at $34.5 million while the previous record was $34.3 million.

How It Happened

Notice though that this new record would not have been attained under normal conditions. By August 25^th, The International 2020 should have ended. But because of the global crisis we’re currently experiencing, the event was delayed indefinitely (most likely, for August 2021) while the Battle Pass was made available to the public months in advance. Assuming it will continue to be available for purchase for quite some time to come, I think it’s safe to say that the next TI will have a prize pool of more than 40 million dollars.

How Valve Does It Each Year

Valve manages to somehow climb to new heights each year. Apart from The International 2, which had the same prize as The International 1 ($1.6 million), every single edition of this tournament had a prize pool that was significantly higher than the previous one. In just 10 years, we went from $1.6 million to $34 million. You don’t have to be good at math to realize that this is a more than a 2100% increase.

These absolutely epic amounts would not be possible without the community’s involvement. Each year, Valve releases its Battle Pass or in-game additional content bundle for a modest cost and makes it so appealing that the majority of the Dota 2 community gets involved. And with 9-10 million people contributing even a little bit, it’s no wonder that the prize of The International gets so enormous in just several months. In total, the prize is made up of 25% of the Battle Pass revenues + $1.6 million from Valve’s coffers. If the total prize of this next edition will be over $34 million, the implication is that Valve must have sold around $130 million worth of Battle Passes. That’s impressive, to say the least.

Could It Work For Other Esports

With all this success confirmed over many years, one can’t help but ask: why not do it for CS:GO as well? Why just Dota 2?

It’s true, it’s much harder to create extra content for CS:GO that would be appealing to people and make them want to buy a Battle Pass. Plus you need a dedicated team experienced in doing that sort of thing. In Dota 2, the process started slowly. The first year’s DLC was far from the glorious one you get 8 years later. But still, if you start somewhere and experiment with the possibilities, the potential is enormous. The CS:GO community is huge and even a small contribution from everyone could make those $1 million Majors that happen twice each year be worth at least 3 times as much. Or, if Valve wanted to, CS:GO could have 5 Majors instead of 2.

 

Photo credit: Valve