The International 12’s prize distribution lowers the hype

At previous editions of The International, the prize pool was so large that Valve never had to worry about hype. From one tier to the next, teams were getting a substantial amount of extra money, so the incentive to finish the race as close to the top as possible was self-evident.

But now that the prize pool has decreased to $3 million, Valve had a difficult choice to make ahead of the tournament: how should the prize pool be split among the 20 participants?

The problem

The decision to offer even the lowest-ranked teams $30.000 makes perfect sense. Otherwise, what was the point of all the effort plus the expenses? But that left the company with a major problem: the reward differentiation between the tiers is not big enough to generate hype and a real desire to win.

Unless you finish the tournament in the top four, placing 16^th or 6^th is pretty much the same thing for players who have already won hundreds of thousands of dollars from Dota.

The four teams that finished the tournament 13^th – 16^th will receive $46.629, while the two teams that will finish 5^th – 6^th will receive around $101.000. When you divide the difference by five and then include org fees, the coach, taxes, and other expenses, you end up with around $5000 – $7000 per player.

That difference encapsulates a difference of 10 positions at the Dota 2 world championship, which is quite ridiculous. But there’s not much that Valve could have done about the situation, except perhaps to give “just” $1 million to the winning team and make the whole event a remake of The International 1.

That would have been nostalgic, except that esports and Dota 2 grew so much since then that it would have also underlined how big of a failure this TI has been from a prize pool perspective.

The future looks very uncertain at this point. Without a professional circuit in place and with just one tournament announced for the upcoming season, Dota 2, at least on its esports side, is in peril.

This is one of the best games in the world and easily one of the best esports (the perfect argument is the relatively high viewership numbers of TI12). But unfortunately for the community, very little has been done by Valve to improve or at least preserve the professional scene.

Header: Valve