The prize pool for Valve's huge annual Dota 2 tournament, The International, has just hit its biggest milestone so far, with $15 million raised for the prize pool. This also means that all of Valve's crowd-funding stretch goals up to this point have been hit.
The prize pool is mostly raised from sales of the Compendium, which is a digital book that Valve brings out every year to help fund the tournament. This year's ‘The International' already had the largest prize pool so far in eSports history when it surpassed $11 million a few weeks back.
Valve has invested some money in to the prize pool itself, putting $1.6 million in to the pot and leaving the rest up to the community. Obviously due to the popularity of cosmetic items in Dota 2 on the Steam marketplace, Valve has likely already made that money back.
The International has grown year after year and it only seems to be getting bigger. Even though people can watch from home, the live event at the Seattle Key Arena also consistently sells out so these tournaments definitely have a lot of money thrown in to them.
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KitGuru Says: I followed The International tournament last year out of curiosity, clearly it is becoming a pretty big deal if this much money is being thrown at it. Are any of you guys planning on checking out the tournament when it starts?