The Dota 2 International tournament is coming back this year and it seems to be more popular than ever as Valve's 10,000 available tickets were all snapped up within an hour of going on sale. The event is due to take place from the 18th to the 21st of July at the Key Arena in Seattle.
Officials at the arena confirmed that around 10,000 tickets were sold including general admission and VIP but wouldn't confirm if another wave of tickets was due to hit the public. Doug Lombardi of Valve also confirmed the number saying: “Tickets were gone roughly one hour after they went on sale.”
For those who don't want to risk waiting for another wave of tickets to be released can find them available on eBay, although they are going for twice the regular price. Valve may have boosted the tournament's popularity with its recently released documentary film, “Free to Play”, which was based on the 2011 Dota 2 International where the winning team won $1,000,000.
KitGuru Says: This is a big step for eSports and really shows how popular it is getting. A similar thing happened last year with the League of Legends World Championships, tickets for that event also sold out in roughly an hour. Are any of you guys in to eSports at all?
Source: OnGamers
As a person that loves gaming, I’am loving where eSports is heading right now.
I have played Dota Allstars (the ancestor of Dota 2) for 2 years and Dota 2 for also two years now. The biggest thing that keeps me attracted to Dota 2 is the Professional scene. If there wasn’t a professional scene in Dota 2 I would’ve already stopped playing it.
I am really amazed how fast this scene is growing. I am not only talking about Dota 2 here but also for LoL, CS etc. I will be talking mostly about LoL and Dota 2 tough. We started with local tournaments, then some sponsors came in and put a couple hundred dollars. After a couple years these two big names (LoL and Dota 2) come around and put BIG money in the plays.
However both games take different approaches how they want the scene to be. Valve is organising a yearly World Cup where the 16 best Dota 2 teams are competing for a HUGE prize, and leaves the rest of the year for other tournament organizers.
Riot on the other hand wants to hold the scene in their own hands and leave less space for other tournaments. There are still other organisers ofcourse (like IEM) but there is way less space for other tournament organisers. The good side of this, is that the scene is much more organised.
I actually like what both companys are doing. It is just a matter of vision. But as far as keeping the scene more growing I prefer the approach of valve. Why? Just because I think it leaves more space to the scene itself and learns it to stay on its own feet. Also there is way more room for players to become a professional player, with the many tournaments with decent pirze pools that have open qualifiers.
In 5 years I think that even the biggest stadiums won’t be big enough for tournaments like The International and LCS finals.