Dota 2 The International beats its own biggest esports prize pool ever record
$20m and rising.
We have a new record for the biggest esports prize pool ever - and it's gone to the previous record holder Dota 2.
This year's The International surpassed last year's largest ever esports prize purse of $20,770,460. At the time of publication, the prize pool was at $20.8m, but with a month of crowdfunding still to go, the total will no doubt rise even further.
Valve boosts The International prize pool by selling the hugely popular Battle Pass compendium, which this year includes a Dota 2 co-op adventure. 25 per cent of all Battle Pass sales go directly to The International 2017 prize pool.
Eighteen teams take part in The International, which takes place at Seattle's KeyArena from 7th to 12th August. Six are directly invited, with 12 teams who earn their place via regional qualifiers. All 18 teams battle in two round robin groups from which the bottom team of each group are eliminated. The remaining 16 teams then move on to the double elimination main event at the KeyArena.
Dota 2 is the most popular game on Steam, and one of the most popular games in the world. 635,000 people were playing at the time of this article's publication. 12.3m people played Dota 2 in the last month.