The new edition of the annual tournament called “The International” in Dota 2 has always been considered the tournament with the highest prize-pool. This year again, the meter does not disappoint us. Game developer Valve has considered a clever founding system, as $1,600,000 in prize money is guaranteed and the fans and players contribute the other part through exclusive in-game purchases. The so-called Battle Pass allows players to unlock exclusive game content and have the option of extended spectator functions in the tournament itself. In addition, in-game bets can also be placed to purchase additional goodies. Since 2013 the Dota 2 developer releases an in-game item called the Battle Pass from which 25% of sales go directly into The Internationals prize-pool. Also this year we can look forward to a new rekord! In the following we want to provide an overview of the prize-pool and the distribution of prize money to the teams:
TI8 Prizepool: $24,411,463 (16.08.2018)
The prize money has already reached 98.5% of the previous year's value 10 days before the final, because an increase is still possible until the grand final day. So the value contributed by Valve has increased from $1,600,000 million dollars by 1425.72%! Experience has shown that the prize money has not increased as much in the last few days, as players want to benefit from the advantages of the Battle Pass earlier. It remains to be seen whether we expect a new record prize money…
TI8 Prizepool distribution
| Place | Prize $ USD | Team |
 1. |
$10,740,755 (16.08.2018 – founding until grand final ) | |
 2. |
TBA | |
 3. |
TBA | |
 4. |
TBA | |
| 5. – 6. | TBA | |
| 7. – 8. | TBA | |
| 9. – 12. | TBA | |
| 13. – 16. | TBA | |
| 17. – 18. | TBA | |
History of Prize-pools at TIs
Five years ago the prize money was “only” $2,874,407, which was by far the highest endowed tournament at the time, but not even among the top 10 of the highest prize money today. 2014 was the first record year this system really started to work and so The International's prize money raised to $10,931,103, the first tournament to exceed the $10 million mark. The TI's prize money raised more and more, not least because the size of the battle pass has increased massively compared to previous years. In 2016 the increase was not so gigantic any more but it was nevertheless sufficient to just exceed the 20 million dollar mark. The final prize pool 2016 was $20,770,640. Whereas the TI7 broke all records – a whopping $24,787,916! We remain curious where the prize money will develop in 2018.
Source: prizetrac.kr
Comparison with other eSports games
Source: esportsearnings.com
Here is a list of the cumulative prize money of the five most popular competitive game titles. Already in the listing we see that Dota 2 leads the table far. The international tournaments, which make up the major part of the prize money, are of great importance. The prize money is distributed most fairly at League of Legends, which have introduced a kind of minimum wage for their tournaments. CS:GO, with its sheer number of tournaments, will also receive considerable prize money. Starcraft leads the table in the sheer number of tournaments, as Starcraft is one of the oldest eSports titles and has inspired millions of fans for decades.
More information about the TI8:
