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The prize pool for the upcoming Dota 2 tournament is now the largest prize pool ever in esports history, which is why I'm submitting it to HN. It's an interest

The prize pool for the upcoming Dota 2 tournament is now the largest prize pool ever in esports history, which is why I'm submitting it to HN. It's an interesting new phenomenon, because it seems to indicate that esports may finally be taking off. Valve basically crowdfunded their tournament prize pool. They started out by offering an initial $1.6M prize pool, but gave every dota 2 player the option of buying a "compendium" for $10, and each compendium increases the prize pool by $2.50. That means Valve makes $7.50 per compendium sold. I just ran the math, and as of right now there have been ($3,365,563 - $1,600,000)/$2.50 = 706,255 compendiums purchased. Since Valve earns $7.50 per compendium, that means they just made $5.3M in a couple days. And they're set to make even more next year, since the Dota 2 playerbase has some nice exponential growth: http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&appid=570&from=0 http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&appid=570&from=... I'm not sure there are any articles about this yet, because this news is so new. I wish I had a decent article to submit to HN instead of this link. But this is certainly newsworthy, so it's a matter of time before you start hearing other news sources talking about it. EDIT: If you're looking to see what a Dota tournament is like, here are two great matches from last year: Game 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaGSi1YTA-E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaGSi1YTA-E Game 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajQuCZx-yx8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajQuCZx-yx8 The production quality is so good! EDIT2: Also, Valve made a movie called "Free to Play" which documents what life is like for top-tier Dota players: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjZYMI1zB9s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjZYMI1zB9s

vidyesh 13y ago
You forgot to mention, all this from a Free-to-Play game. Also, the TI4 games are free to watch for any and every one and Compendium is just a ticket with a lot of goodies and adds to the prize pool.
changdizzle 13y ago
This is awesome - I think there's a huge intersection between Esports and the HN crowd - look at how many people on here love playing games like StarCraft, League, MineCraft, Dota2, etc. Also, Twitch is absolutely (forgive the cliche) killing it and they're a YC. Minefold (YC W12) was also a game server company but it looks like they're now defunct. It's interesting to note that last year Valve was able to raise $1,274,380 over a three month period. I've been around Esports for a long time and I truly feel we're about to hit the golden age. Exciting stuff!
duskwuff 13y ago
For comparison: Valve did the same thing last year, with the same starting point, and raised an extra $1.2M for the prize pool over the course of the event. This year, they've raised the prize pool by $1.7M in the first two days -- and the finals are still about two months off! A major factor here is probably that Valve has explicitly gamified contribution by introducing a Compendium "level" controlling access to some bonus content as it increases, which can be increased either by participating in certain Compendium content or, most importantly, by paying extra. :)
spazmaster 13y ago
The amount of compendiums sold isn't acurate. The prize pool is being buffed by the purchase of compendium points to garner additional features (with many players sinking money many times more than what the compendium cost). I wouldn't be surprised if this is a big factor behind how fast the prize pool is growing.
- sillysaurus3 13y ago
  Ah, thank you for correcting that. Valve's profit is probably a function of the current prize pool, right? So it seems like they should have made at least 2x above what they're offering. Since the pool increased by $1.76M, it seems likely they've made at least $3.5M. But I'm just speculating based on intuition. If you have hard details, please post 'em!
  - jdoliner 13y ago
    I'm pretty sure all of the purchases result in the same 75-25 split so that part of the math isn't wrong. It's just that fewer total people have donated that amount.
- 2Pacalypse- 13y ago
  Indeed. The added option of leveling up your compendium was a genius move by Valve. There is a screenshot[1] of someone with level 1058 on his compendium already. Seeing as $10 buys you 24 levels, he spent over $400 on it. [1] - http://i.imgur.com/VSPWNDu.jpg http://i.imgur.com/VSPWNDu.jpg
  - 001spartan 13y ago
    You can earn levels through playing the game, and earning drops in-game as well. It's not necessarily from buying levels alone.
diakritikal 13y ago
That's interesting stats and great leverage of their community by Valve. League of Legends seems to boast a much higher (in number of players but also in toxic trolls) community, but they don't have the distribution/media channels per se although online viewership of League of Legends can surpass 100k on twitch.tv I think this segment of the gaming arena will really hot up when Blizzard release their competing title directly against Dota2 and leage of Legends.
- sillysaurus3 13y ago
  Blizzard's making a competing title? Heh. I'm pretty sure the creator of Dota offered Blizzard the chance to create Dota 2 back in like 2009, but they turned him away. He wound up going to Valve and they made Dota 2. What's Blizzard's new title? Thanks for pointing that out!
  - FreakLegion 13y ago
    The creator of DotA (Allstars, the most popular incarnation)[0] works for Riot on League of Legends. The guy at Valve[1] inherited it. The creator of the original DotA also works at Valve, but he came and went long before Allstars blew up. (He actually stopped working on DotA to create a sequel, Thirst for Gamma, which was truly awful and never made it out of the gate.) [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Feak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Feak [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceFrog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceFrog
    - cthalupa 13y ago
      >The creator of DotA (Allstars, the most popular incarnation)[0] works for Riot on League of Legends. The guy at Valve[1] inherited it. I would argue that Icefrog's version was the most popular incarnation. It may have started off as simply an inheritance of Allstars, but Icefrog is the one that actually balanced it and made it something that was competitive. The popularity skyrocketed after Icefrog took over for Guinsoo.
  - 001spartan 13y ago
Zariel 13y ago
Valve did the same thing last year, but too see how much more successful it is this year see the graph at the bottom of this page, its staggering. http://dota2.cyborgmatt.com/prizetracker/international2014 http://dota2.cyborgmatt.com/prizetracker/international2014
Paul_S 13y ago
I watched (OK, not all of it) one of the games you linked and I don't understand any of what the commentators are saying. It relies heavily on knowing what the hell is going on to be appreciated. FPSs don't have this problem, yet they remain a smaller niche. Even if you don't know anything about Doom, you'll have no trouble following this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcSj0lk-vEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcSj0lk-vEo ...I can't believe I'm recommending anything - I don't even like spectator sports. But I used to play doom back when e-sports were still science-fiction.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  FPS is much more of a visceral experience to me. RTS is perfect for esports IMO. Even superficially, think about soccer or football. The spectator can see the whole field. Players work as a team to orchestrate big plays. Different players have distinctly different roles. The parallels go on. FPS has a lot of this, but it gives the player a more visceral experience- and as a trade-off, makes it more difficult for a spectator to "watch the game". The part about having to understand some of the lingo and all? Well, football (both US & EU) is completely obtuse to the uninitiated.
- sillysaurus3 13y ago
  Yeah, agreed, that's Dota's single biggest flaw: it's hard for newcomers to watch it and enjoy it like a game of football. Although, in fairness, football's popularity may have something to do with that. If you watch Free to Play (linked above) it helps clarify things somewhat. (It's pretty interesting anyway.) But it may be an unsolvable problem, which would be unfortunate. Then again, the tournament scene is still in its nascent stages. Once the production quality goes up some more, there may be a brief intro for each hero selected that describes to the audience what the hero can do and what its items usually are and what they do.
  - vidyesh 13y ago
    >Then again, the tournament scene is still in its nascent stages. Once the production quality goes up some more, there may be a brief intro for each hero selected that describes to the audience what the hero can do and what its items usually are and what they do. It might happen that way, in one single game the teams go through 20 heroes of which 5 are banned by both sides and 5 are picked by both sides.

vidyesh 13y ago

You forgot to mention, all this from a Free-to-Play game. Also, the TI4 games are free to watch for any and every one and Compendium is just a ticket with a lot of goodies and adds to the prize pool.

changdizzle 13y ago

This is awesome - I think there's a huge intersection between Esports and the HN crowd - look at how many people on here love playing games like StarCraft, League, MineCraft, Dota2, etc. Also, Twitch is absolutely (forgive the cliche) killing it and they're a YC. Minefold (YC W12) was also a game server company but it looks like they're now defunct. It's interesting to note that last year Valve was able to raise $1,274,380 over a three month period. I've been around Esports for a long time and I truly feel we're about to hit the golden age. Exciting stuff!

duskwuff 13y ago

For comparison: Valve did the same thing last year, with the same starting point, and raised an extra $1.2M for the prize pool over the course of the event. This year, they've raised the prize pool by $1.7M in the first two days -- and the finals are still about two months off! A major factor here is probably that Valve has explicitly gamified contribution by introducing a Compendium "level" controlling access to some bonus content as it increases, which can be increased either by participating in certain Compendium content or, most importantly, by paying extra. :)

spazmaster 13y ago

The amount of compendiums sold isn't acurate. The prize pool is being buffed by the purchase of compendium points to garner additional features (with many players sinking money many times more than what the compendium cost). I wouldn't be surprised if this is a big factor behind how fast the prize pool is growing.

sillysaurus3 13y ago
Ah, thank you for correcting that. Valve's profit is probably a function of the current prize pool, right? So it seems like they should have made at least 2x above what they're offering. Since the pool increased by $1.76M, it seems likely they've made at least $3.5M. But I'm just speculating based on intuition. If you have hard details, please post 'em!
- jdoliner 13y ago
  I'm pretty sure all of the purchases result in the same 75-25 split so that part of the math isn't wrong. It's just that fewer total people have donated that amount.
2Pacalypse- 13y ago
Indeed. The added option of leveling up your compendium was a genius move by Valve. There is a screenshot[1] of someone with level 1058 on his compendium already. Seeing as $10 buys you 24 levels, he spent over $400 on it. [1] - http://i.imgur.com/VSPWNDu.jpg http://i.imgur.com/VSPWNDu.jpg
- 001spartan 13y ago
  You can earn levels through playing the game, and earning drops in-game as well. It's not necessarily from buying levels alone.

diakritikal 13y ago

That's interesting stats and great leverage of their community by Valve. League of Legends seems to boast a much higher (in number of players but also in toxic trolls) community, but they don't have the distribution/media channels per se although online viewership of League of Legends can surpass 100k on twitch.tv I think this segment of the gaming arena will really hot up when Blizzard release their competing title directly against Dota2 and leage of Legends.

sillysaurus3 13y ago
Blizzard's making a competing title? Heh. I'm pretty sure the creator of Dota offered Blizzard the chance to create Dota 2 back in like 2009, but they turned him away. He wound up going to Valve and they made Dota 2. What's Blizzard's new title? Thanks for pointing that out!
- FreakLegion 13y ago
  The creator of DotA (Allstars, the most popular incarnation)[0] works for Riot on League of Legends. The guy at Valve[1] inherited it. The creator of the original DotA also works at Valve, but he came and went long before Allstars blew up. (He actually stopped working on DotA to create a sequel, Thirst for Gamma, which was truly awful and never made it out of the gate.) [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Feak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Feak [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceFrog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceFrog
  - cthalupa 13y ago
    >The creator of DotA (Allstars, the most popular incarnation)[0] works for Riot on League of Legends. The guy at Valve[1] inherited it. I would argue that Icefrog's version was the most popular incarnation. It may have started off as simply an inheritance of Allstars, but Icefrog is the one that actually balanced it and made it something that was competitive. The popularity skyrocketed after Icefrog took over for Guinsoo.
- 001spartan 13y ago

Zariel 13y ago

Valve did the same thing last year, but too see how much more successful it is this year see the graph at the bottom of this page, its staggering. http://dota2.cyborgmatt.com/prizetracker/international2014 http://dota2.cyborgmatt.com/prizetracker/international2014

Paul_S 13y ago

I watched (OK, not all of it) one of the games you linked and I don't understand any of what the commentators are saying. It relies heavily on knowing what the hell is going on to be appreciated. FPSs don't have this problem, yet they remain a smaller niche. Even if you don't know anything about Doom, you'll have no trouble following this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcSj0lk-vEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcSj0lk-vEo ...I can't believe I'm recommending anything - I don't even like spectator sports. But I used to play doom back when e-sports were still science-fiction.

sliverstorm 13y ago
FPS is much more of a visceral experience to me. RTS is perfect for esports IMO. Even superficially, think about soccer or football. The spectator can see the whole field. Players work as a team to orchestrate big plays. Different players have distinctly different roles. The parallels go on. FPS has a lot of this, but it gives the player a more visceral experience- and as a trade-off, makes it more difficult for a spectator to "watch the game". The part about having to understand some of the lingo and all? Well, football (both US & EU) is completely obtuse to the uninitiated.
sillysaurus3 13y ago
Yeah, agreed, that's Dota's single biggest flaw: it's hard for newcomers to watch it and enjoy it like a game of football. Although, in fairness, football's popularity may have something to do with that. If you watch Free to Play (linked above) it helps clarify things somewhat. (It's pretty interesting anyway.) But it may be an unsolvable problem, which would be unfortunate. Then again, the tournament scene is still in its nascent stages. Once the production quality goes up some more, there may be a brief intro for each hero selected that describes to the audience what the hero can do and what its items usually are and what they do.
- vidyesh 13y ago
  >Then again, the tournament scene is still in its nascent stages. Once the production quality goes up some more, there may be a brief intro for each hero selected that describes to the audience what the hero can do and what its items usually are and what they do. It might happen that way, in one single game the teams go through 20 heroes of which 5 are banned by both sides and 5 are picked by both sides.