Every year Valve has been hosting their own official DotA 2 tournament called “The International”. The company pumps some of its own money to the prize pool, which the remainder is left to gamers and fans of the game, in which contributing to the pool will net them some pretty cool in-game rewards and the likes.
Every year it seems that the prize pool has broken the previous year’s record, like how last year it managed to raise a little over $18 million, and no surprises, it looks like this year the prize pool for DotA 2 has broken last year’s record. To be more specific, last year’s record was at $18,429,613. According to the tracker, this year’s prize pool has raised $18,461,986.
With Valve putting in $1.6 million of their own money, this means that gamers around the world have contributed a whopping $16,681,986 at this time of writing! We should also point out that with the tournament kicking off on the 3rd of August, meaning that there’s about a week left before it starts, it is possible that the prize pool could get even bigger, and who knows, it could very well pass the $20 million mark.