At the making of this post, it is at $8,527,638. I can only imagine the dududududu afterparty stream is now (in theory) an inevitability. The release of the Immortal items gave the prize pool a pretty healthy boost of almost two million dollars. With the tournament still more than a month away, it seems almost impossible to not hit the ten million mark.

What does this mean for DotA? What does this mean for the future of e-sports? What the fuck, man?

Shit is crazy. This is great.

has that thing started yet? I need to try and win some random drop for watching the streams so I can supplement my steam wallet.

@devil240z: The qualifiers just ended. There's still the Wild Card tournament left before the actual tournament in July.

wow, ten million, isn't that way more than most top-of-their-game athletes could ever hope to get for an event?

i watched the last few rounds last year and thought it was great, particularly Navi's comeback against Orange in the... semi's was it? The final too.

Looking forward to it.

@hh: Well, the winner only takes half of the total prize pool, but, yeah, four/five million is a healthy chunk of change. Of course, the players don't get all of it since there's still the administrative parts of the team.

One thing to be aware of is that most of the teams have experienced roster changes. This is especially true for Chinese teams in particular. Stable teams like Alliance and Na'Vi retain their players, and Na'Vi very recently picked up a North American squad (formerly North American Rejects, or NAR) who also qualified for TI4.

I'd really like to see this sort of money divided up somehow over the course of the year than blown all in one go on a handful of teams. There is still a big preconception all pro players are rich, which is hardly the case. The next biggest prize pools for comps this year are 250,000 and then it drops down to like 10,000-50,000 for most.

It all sounds like a lot, but when you divide it up among 5 plus a manager, over the course of months, it's not looking better than an average paying job.

Though most of them are young so they still probably have a living situation sorted with their family and few other responsibilities.

Definitely an awesome thing for e sports though, valve are really fucking good at this, that compendium is well worth the money for the content it provides.

This amount of money is insane. Dota 2 managed to generate almost the same amount of money selling an "e-pamphlet" (in the loosest sense) as compared to Star Citizen selling the promise of a game with ships so big you need > 1 person to fly it efficiently.

As of this writing, the prize pool is now $8,934,153! That's almost $9 million! Considering that only 25% of the compendium-related sales goes into the prize pool, that's about $36 million dollars selling this bloody e-pamphlet. For reference, Star Citizen is only up to $45+ million. Dota 2 made more money in 2 months than Star Citizen did in 2 years!

And we're over $9,000,000, folks.

Either someone at Valve is super excited and making phone calls to secure Darude for the afterparty stream, or Lord Gaben is cursing himself for approving of a stretch goal reward that he'd thought would never be reached.

The prize pool growth has slowed significantly now, and with no more big item stretch goals to be met (other than the Pudge courier's release, if you count that) hitting ten million might be difficult. Fingers crossed.

The prize pool being over $9m is crazy but it's even crazier when you realize that means players have spent over $36,000,000 on the compendium and compendium points since only 25% goes into the prize pool. All for basically virtual items in a F2P game. Not counting all the other money that's been spent and that Valve has been making from their cut of buying/selling items from this tourney. It's fucking madness =P

@zomgfruitbunnies: The Pudge courier has the second skin at lvl fifty compendium, so there is still that reason for people to sink money when the courier drops.

I'd be interested to know how big the stack of compendium money Gabe is rolling in is, compared to just a normal days intake from steam.

If we hit and pass ten million, then the sky's the limit. Nine million is already completely bonkers. I mean, the actual event is still a month away.

@zomgfruitbunnies: the darude after party stretch goal was for the live broadcast. The after party was already happening.

@froggeh: I'm assuming you mean dududu was already booked and appearing for the after party before the stretch goal was announced, and that the stretch goal is only for a live stream of the party? Didn't know that. Cool either way, though!

Prize Pool Update: $9,352,427. New upgraded creeps get.

Just means more DoTA clones.

@zomgfruitbunnies: yeah

With a prize pool this large, I would say they need a bigger tournament!

Current prize pool: $9,995,034.

We're less than five thousand dollars away from breaking TEN MILLION. That's million bucks times ten.

I just bought another ten dollars worth of Compendium points.

LET'S DO DIS.

It just hit $10 million.

Valve sold e-pamphlet and trinkets to the tune of $40 million.

You MOBA people are insane.

Daaaaaamn.

That's just for TI4. I don't think I want to know what the world spend on virtual goodies for Dota2 since it came out of beta..

Dammit, esports is supposed to be something you ridicule because the kids aren't really making any real money.

I honestly didn't think it would ever become that much at the start of this.

Ten million dollars!

God I hate Dota but you can't deny the impact its had over the last several years.

Im betting CS:GO is starting to outsell Dota by now when it comes to items. You can resell a lot of CSGO items for well over $20 on the market. Buying chests in Dota is actually more expensive then just buying the items on the community market. Even got one of the very rare Kunkka items out of a chest and that only seels for around $2. Probably less now. The rarity and worth of items in Dota 2 is super fucked. I mean, I like having a lot of items and stuff but I also like having something I know is worth some money.

It's ludicrous! I love it!

I wonder if this is the peak or esports or still growing. I thought it couldn't really keep growing after League sold out the Staples Center but now DOTA's doing this and League's having their final in a soccer stadium.

@flacracker: That's what happens when you have 8 people playing your game compared to eleventy billion. Counter Strike is no where close to outselling DOTA concerning items.

This is how the market goes though. As soon as TI4 is complete and the compendium is "shutdown" then all of the items that are around it will start increasing in value as items disappear into the ether (accounts go inactive, duplicate items used as fodder for something else, etc).

Hell I sell spare game cards when I get them. It is pretty small amounts but as long as it is easy I don't mind and that is the real key instead of the amount transacted.

Valve needs more stretch goals. The damn thing's already hit an extra $100k.

@white: Doubt we're going to get any more. The playoffs are starting next week.

Who knows, maybe we'll get a surprise stretch goal like the techies update.

Oh fucking techies. So much trolling inc.

@zomgfruitbunnies: Gaben will be like "Hey, you want techies? Make it $20 million! Trololololol"

I don't know how long kind of thing is sustainable though. Sure there's sponsorship deals and whatever, but realistically it's only worthwhile if you're consistently winning tournaments, which most teams aren't. So you either need to be financially sound already, or you need the organisers of each event to basically sponsor you for the duration of each tournament, and your advertisers to help you out in between. Sounds like a pretty fucking precarious existence, to be honest.

Makes me wonder if Valve will start actually giving their pro teams staff privileges to stay and train for these events, as I understand LoL does?

well, we know the Techies are coming either way, a really nice surprise stretch goal would be the Oracle (which is supposed to be the most "almost ready" one after the Techies). If Valve was to release this one like "ok guys, here it is surprise!" that would be great... but we are in HL3 territory in term of credibility here.

The winner will be brought to Gaben's office, with his giant crystal desk and white cat, and he'll say "You can have the prize money, or I will release Half-Life 3. But not both. Choose."

Let's hope he chooses right.

@kimvidard: To get off topic slightly, wasn't that last TF2 short supposed to be a hint at the potential release of HL3 due to all of the "three"s that were subtly placed in it?

@vuud: So if a Chinese team wins, we're fucked. Because as far as I can tell, Chinese people give no fucks about HL3.

I think at this point Valve is just fucking with people with the whole '3' thing. I'd be absolutely astounded if Half Life 3 is even released at this point.

And MAN I can't wait for this Dota tournament. I freaking loved TI3, and TI4 is shaping up to be pretty damn amazing. With over 10 million on the line it's going to be super intense.

@random45: Sure is. Playoffs are starting next week. Kinda bummed that I can't really watch 'em since I'll be at work because time zones and shit, but at least the finals are on a weekend.

This year's TI seems a lot less predictable than last year's (y'know, dat (A)lliance steamroller). IG and EG are both doing damn well lately and last year's regular powerhouses like (A) and Na'Vi and the restructured DK have all been less than stellar. Then you have the up-and-comers like CIS (who still haven't gotten their visas approved after being rejected twice), C9, and Na'Vi.US (formerly NAR) who have all put on strong performances. Then the Fnatic drama, which appears to be sorted out, now. Much hype. Much excite. Much anticipation.

There so much shit happening this month. FIFA, EVO, and TI4 all taking place in July.

That's a whole lot of prize money. Really hope fnatic can come through and place well. Will be interesting to see how EG and Alliance do as they are sister brands and might be bootcamping together covertly. God damn, so hyped now with CIS getting their visa's too (even though they haven't practiced for 40 days)

Can't wait.

Does Valve do any sort of coverage/streaming of the non-International events?

I generally follow League, but a lot of that is because I can just be lazy and go to Riot's page instead of having to delve into which Twitch channels are good.

@corvak: Everything's streamed in-game, each tournament or whatever has it's own little thing in the "Watch" tab. Outside of the client, it's mostly up to other websites, like DotaCinema, to centralize them. I think it would be to Valves advantage to have some central hub outside of the game for competitive stuff, but they seem to prefer leaving as much as possible to the community.

this stuff just makes me cringe.

@billymagnum: then why even watch it or come to post on the forum about it?

@corvak: I think their philosophy is to leave every non-valve event up to the community so it will be self sufficient. Its the same reason why they do tickets and the workshop. It's all about enabling the seemingly endless amount of labour that the community is willing to put in to make it self sufficient. I think it was Erik Johnson (or Adrian Finol?) who talked about this at last International saying that if Valve were to stop doing the international or working on the game that the scene wouldn't disappear. Gabe also always talks about this. Might be worth checking out his long talk at LBJ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QEOBgLBQU

oh hmmm idk....because i can?

FIFA? Never heard of that gaming tournament.

Does anyone know the math/split for the invited teams right now? I am wondering for just showing up and getting blown out (ie. losing all of the games), what does that team take with $10m prize pool? I am not in the right place to look up this information but if that number is still "pretty damn good" they might need to invite more teams.

@extomar: http://dota2.cyborgmatt.com/prizetracker/international2014

If these numbers still apply for TI4, 7th & 8th take home 1.5% each.

Split is still not announced. The hope from the community is that all 16 teams gets a slice of the pie, but its all up to Valve.