For Playing a Few Rounds of Dota 2, a Team Can Win over P2 Million in Prizes

This year’s The International 5, Dota 2’s grandest tournament, has managed to break records yet again with a total prize pool of $16.9 million at the time of writing—and the main event hasn’t even begun.

Thanks to Valve, the company behind the massively popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game, this year’s event promises to be even more lucrative than its predecessors.

Smart marketing moves by way of crowd-funding the prize pool through selling in-game items and a staggered release of new content has allowed the software company to top The International 4’s record-breaking prize purse of over $10 million for a videogame tournament.

But despite the astronomical size of the winnings for last year’s event, being a professional Dota 2 player means having to compete in an inherently top-heavy environment.

Last year’s champions, Team NewBee from China, walked away with over $5 million spread across their five players, coach, support staff and organization. A sizeable chunk of change, for sure, but the teams at the bottom of the standings – team North American Rejects from the US and Team Arrow from Malaysia—received exactly zero for their efforts.

This top-heavy approach to videogame tournaments is nothing new. But it seems that Valve is going to set new precedents with the announcement of the payout structure for this year’s The International 5.

For the first time in The International’s five-year history, every team participating in the event will receive a cut from the total prize pool. Of the 16 teams participating in the main event this year, even the last place team will receive at least P2 million for playing a few rounds of Dota 2. That’s P2 million for what usually takes 8-12 hours of play, for a year-long stretch, to qualify for The International.

If you’re not sure how big a deal this is for participating teams, consider this: Team Rave, the Philippines’ strongest bets to be a part of this year’s The International, operated for a year with almost no funding from sponsors or corporate patrons. Instead, the team relocated to South Korea in order to compete better against other international teams, relying on their meager winnings from smaller tournaments to carry on.

In 2014, members of the Rave team described the struggle of being a team without any corporate backing after they won the Mineski Pro Gaming League title in the Philippines. Their players spend at least 8-12 hours, daily, playing Dota 2, strategizing and analyzing enemy tactics – all without a secure and reliable cash flow to keep them afloat.

When the team failed to qualify for The International 5, the team eventually disbanded as their year-long efforts were effectively negated.

This is not a unique occurrence for Team Rave. Many teams, upon failing to qualify, or even failing to place in what is the most lucrative eSports tournament in the world, disband under the weight of mounting economic distress. Most players jump ship to “stronger” teams in hopes of being able to win tournaments right after The International to recoup their losses.

But with The International 5’s new payout structure, Valve is sending a message: teams that have become such a large part of extolling the virtues of the eSports dreams that Dota 2 and other games have cultivated deserve to have their efforts compensated somewhat.

Glad TI is finally paying teams for their hard work for the year instead of just the winning teams.

— Clinton Loomis (@FearDotA) July 18, 2015

This year, even if a team manages to score no victories on the way to the grand finals, they will go home with the satisfaction that being good enough, at least, to compete at the highest stages of play in Dota 2 is to be rewarded.

An even greater message, however, is that Valve is willing to spread the money around to the individuals and teams who spent an entire year to qualify for the largest tournament in eSports, instead of perpetuating a top-heavy environment that only serves to cannibalize top talent and shut out teams with no resources.

This year’s The International 5 will be held at the Key Arena Stadium, Seattle, USA. The opening salvo begins, July 27th. Main event begins on August 3rd, 2015.

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