Dota 2 Dominates with a $40 Million Prize Pool
(Image credit: Valve)
Dota 2 reigns at the top among prize pools for the International 10 at $40,018,195, according to a recent Dota 2 Blog post on Supporters Clubs. The large prize pool stems from the remarkable contributions of players purchasing International Battle Passes. The Load Screen covers how Valve is keeping at the top of the esports world and how other competitors compare with their 2021 tournaments. Other titles included are esports giants such as Fortnite, Call of Duty, PUBG, Overwatch, and CS:GO.
Dota 2 is widely popular and uses its fanbase to support its growing prize pool. In 2020 the last International was set but canceled. According to this Forbes article called International 10 Has Biggest esports Prize Pool Ever At $34 Million, it had the largest prize pool set to that date for an esports competition. The jackpot grew further because of the additional battle packs and other in-game offers sold, with 25% going directly to the tournament. Also, as players made those purchases, they could watch the prize pool enlarge on the Dota 2 Battle Pass website directly after every purchase. The number will not change since competitors and locations are set for action.
$34 million was the most significant esports prize pool award at the time of the Forbes article, so over $40 million should clear it again. However, other extremely competitive esports games are having tournaments resume in 2021. One of those is the only title with more consistent players than Dota 2 on the Steam current player count page and the king of Steam: CS:GO. Unfortunately for pros, that popularity does not continue its domination into prize pools for esports. A Counterstrike 2021 Major Championship blog post listed the prize pool total equaling $2 million.
Another popular esports game PUBG has its largest prize pool ever, as listed on the PUBG PGI.S Tournament Format & Rules page. The total is only $3.5 million-plus crowdfunding, meaning the crowd would have to pick up $36.5 million through purchasing PGI.S gear in the store to compete with Dota 2. With only 30% of the profits going towards the prize pool, fans would have to buy over $121 million in products to compete. That would make the developers happy but not a likely scenario.
Even Overwatch is having a stellar year for esports prize pools but only managed to get it to $4.25 million as listed on the official Overwatch league about page in the 2021 Prize Pool section. Potentially higher than PUBG but still nowhere near Dota 2. Another popular esports title, Call of Duty, reaches an impressive yet underwhelming $5 million, corresponding to the official Call of Duty League 2021 Season article.
The only game to come remotely close to the Dota 2 total is Fortnite. On the Epic Games Fortnite 2021 and Chapter 2 Season 5 FNCS Details page, the total prize pool is $20 million. That is a massive total but gets distributed across more tournaments than the Dota 2 prize pool. There are four seasons, each with a $3 million prize pool that spreads out the winnings.
A 40-million-dollar prize pool is hard to top because of the inclusion of funding from last year’s canceled event. Valve may be unable to beat that number in 2022 with only a single year’s battle pass and other store sales to bolster it. Under the unique circumstances of this year, it will not be easy to repeat most prize pool totals in any game. That does not mean Dota 2 cannot do what they have done consistently in esports, it just makes it a little more complicated.
