Dota 2 The International Prize Pool Breaks Last Year's Record With $34.4 Million and Counting

Dota 2, one of the most popular multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games, is known for having massive prize pools for its annual The International esports tournament. This year, the tournament has reached a prize pool of $34.4 (roughly Rs. 255 crore) million and counting. Dota 2 has broken its own record from last year of $34.3 million (roughly Rs. 254 crore). While the tournament has been postponed indefinitely and does not have a fixed date yet due to the ongoing pandemic, its prize pool continues to grow.

At the time of writing, the prize pool for Dota 2 The International esports tournament is at $34,409,860 (roughly Rs. 255.6 crore), which can be seen on its official website. This prize pool is funded by Dota 2 Battle Pass purchases that start from $9.99 and go up to $44.99 — 25 percent of all Battle Pass sales go directly to the prize pool of the tournament. This means that as players continue to buy the Battle Pass, the prize pool continues to grow.

Notably, this Battle Pass will last till September 19 which means the prize pool will increase even further.

Valve, the developer of Dota 2, has not announced a date for the tournament or the Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) and a tweet from August 25 says it “can't yet commit to new dates for TI10 and the DPC.” This uncertainty is because of the “recent increase in the unpredictability of COVID-19”, the tweet adds. It is unclear if The International tournament will take place this year or the next and we'll just have to wait for an update from Valve.

Last year, the prize pool for The International was $34.3 million and it was won by team OG, who were the returning champions from winning the tournament the previous year. They became the first ever repeat champions of The International.

Should the government explain why Chinese apps were banned? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.