The prize pool for this year's International, the championship tournament for Valve's PC multiplayer battle arena game Dota 2, has just crossed the $10 million line. For comparison, this means that the payout to the top teams is now more than the prizes for the 2014 Masters golf tournament, which total a meager $9 million.
This also marks the world record for biggest reward in history for an eSports tournament. It crushes last year's mark of $2.8 million, which was the biggest eSports prize to date. When the Compendium launched in May, its proceeds raised the prize from its initial $1.6 million to $2.2 million in its first night. You can check out some of the other comparable prizes and salaries below (credit to The Verge for the idea):
Valve has collected this much in prize money by crowd-sourcing the pool. People can buy Compendiums which contain in-game items that unlock as the pool increases in amount. At the $10 million mark, owners of the Compendium unlocked the Victory Prediction Taunt for the game.
Each Compendium costs $10 to purchase, and 25% of the proceeds go to the prize pool. This is obviously big business for Valve, and it serves to raise awareness for its game while also bringing in a lot of money.
The International 2014 takes place between July 18-21 in Seattle. It will be held in Seattle's Key Arena, with a seating capacity of 17,000.
| Alex Newhouse is an editorial intern at GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @alexbnewhouse |
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