Why This Year’s The International Didn’t Have a Record-Breaking Prize Pool

The prize funds for Dota 2’s The International have grown over the years, regularly setting new world records. While this premier event remains unbeaten in terms of total financial earnings for the winners, TI11’s grand prize for 2022’s championship didn’t even hit $19 million. The reduction in The International’s prize pool breaks a decade’s streak.

This game’s popularity has been growing, as evidenced by its ballooning player base. The prize pool for the game’s global tournament has kept pace with the growth. Valve has been inflating The International’s prize pool annually over the past years, surpassing the 40 million dollar mark last year.

Most people had hoped for an equally humongous prize this year. Nevertheless, of all the TTs in history, 2022’s event had the third-lowest prize pool.

The International Prize Pool Over the Years

Defense of the Ancients (Dota) made its debut into the eSport realm in August 2011 when the Valve Corporation launched Dota 2 at a $1.6 million tournament. This tournament marked the birth of Dota 2’s The International.

Back then, most eSport championships only had a couple of thousands in their prize pools. Only very few competitions featured more than a hundred thousand dollars in prize money. Giving away a million dollars was unthinkable.

Therefore, the outrageous $1.6 million prize money scored lots of attention for Valve and Dota 2. Another cool 1.6 million dollars was up for grabs in the subsequent TI tournament.

In the third iteration of The International, Valve introduced an interactive digital book, the Compendium. Owning this digital book would unlock bonuses and more items for the players. Every Compendium purchase would conversely increase the prize pool for Dota 2 by $2.5.

Thanks to the Compendium, the prize pool for TI3 was well above two million dollars. Therefore, as you would expect, Valve continued releasing Compendiums for the fourth and fifth TIs. Subsequentially, the prize pool margin continued to expand.

Starting with the sixth TI competition, Valve did away with the Compendium and introduced the Battle Pass. By purchasing Battle Passes, gamers received numerous achievements, quests, and varied in-game rewards. In return, 25% of the total proceeds from the Battle Pass sales were contributed to the TI prize pool.

The new Battle Pass broke the TI6 prize pot by shooting past the $20 million mark. This was an unimaginable achievement at the time.

And so began the legendary rise of the International’s monstrous prize pools. Much to the surprise of many doubters in the eSports world, Valve maintained an impressive streak of sponsoring large cash prizes in TI championships.

The 7th International tournament had a $24.7 million prize pot
The 8^th International tournament had a $25.5 million prize pot
The 9th International tournament had a $34.3 million prize pot
The 10^th International tournament had a $40 million prize pot

Why Did the 11^th Dota 2 Tournament Have a Lower Prize Pool?

The just concluded The International 2022 had a prize pool of $18.9 million. This was a significant drop from its predecessors. Many within the Dota2 betting and eSport community have pointed out several contributing factors leading to the low prize pool for this year’s TI tournament.

Top reasons for a low TI prize pool this year include:

Suboptimal Battle Pass content
Late release of Battle Passes
Absence of Battle Level Bundles

Lackluster Battle Pass Content

This year, only half of the content on Battle Pass was released. The remainder, including Razor’s Arcana and Crystal Maiden’s person, was scheduled for release towards the end of the year.

Additionally, several items such as arcana voting, customized terrain, and creeps, among others were conspicuously absent for this year’s Battle Pass.

Late Release of Battle Passes

The Battle Passes for this year’s Dota 2 were released barely one and a half months before the international tournament.

Contrary to previous releases, which came around June or July, Valve released Battle Passes on 1^st September this year. Players, therefore, had limited time to make the purchase, and consequently, there was a drastic decline in Battle Pass Sales.

Absence of Battle Level Bundles

Getting your desired rewards requires you to grind through Dota 2, performing specific quests that yield Battle Points. Hence, you might miss out on some of the more enviable rewards if you don’t have all day to play the game.

Usually, by purchasing Battle Level Bundles, players can level up more quickly to achieve whatever rewards they desire. However, due to delays by Valve in announcing this year’s Battle Level Bundles, fans couldn’t purchase them well ahead of TI11. Consequently, this year’s price pool failed to get the usual bump from Battle Level Bundles sales.