

The International – Dota 2 Championships - sillysaurus3
http://www.dota2.com/international/compendium/?

======
sillysaurus3
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=...](http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&appid=570&from=0)

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)

~~~
Paul_S
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.

~~~
sillysaurus3
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
>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.

------
2Pacalypse-
Here's a neat prize pool tracker where you can compare it to the last year's
international:
[http://dota2.cyborgmatt.com/prizetracker/international2014](http://dota2.cyborgmatt.com/prizetracker/international2014)

------
cuong
I don't know if Valve does this on purpose, but their remake of titles (Team
Fortress, Counterstrike, Dota) all keep essentially the same gameplay
mechanics but introduce new enhancements (graphics, UI, matchmaking, etc.).

This is important for eSports. Having to learn a new game every 3-4 years so
you can follow along is difficult for viewers. It also allows professional
players who invest the training to transfer their skills more easily.

It's different with other companies -- Blizzard, for example, created a new
game in StarCraft II. It shares a few similarities with Brood War, but the
differences are vast. I really, really like Valve's approach.

~~~
NamTaf
They explicitly stated that Dota 2 would be mechanically identical to Dota 1,
to the point where some of of the quirks imposed on Dota 1 due to engine
limitations were intentionally reproduced in Dota 2.

It's just started to deviate away from that now, but it is kept remarkably
similar - bugs and all. For example, using the item that teleports you a set
distance forward teleports you only 80% of its max distance if you click
_beyond_ its max.

The other one is 'orb effects' \- certain enchantments which add some effect
on your standard attack. They do not stack with one another - only one works
at a time - except for one of them [1] which does stack with only the life-
steal ones.

This makes dota have a learning cliff more than a learning curve, but the
depth of the gameplay is pretty crazy as a result.

[1]:
[http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Eye_of_Skadi](http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Eye_of_Skadi)

~~~
vidyesh
Apart from graphics, attack animation, environmental changes and various
effects. Dota2 is no different from Dota 1 per se.

All the changes that you see right now in dota2 are now map updates for dota1
( yes the crazy 6.80 update which essentially changes a lot of gameplay was a
(map) update in dota 1 too )

For example, The orb effect had always been that way. 'Orb effect does not
stack' Do you remember that on items in dota1? It used to explicitly say that
in the item description in dota1. In dota2 they explain it a bit better.

~~~
NamTaf
Sorry, I wasn't clear: I know that orb effects are identical in dota 1. I am
saying that many of the quirks of dota 1 have been carried over to dota 2 -
Skadi's orb interactions is one example of that.

One difference, for example, is the interaction between naga siren's net and
manta style - in dota 1 it dispells the net, but not dota 2. There are subtle
differences like that but they are the exception.

------
tdicola
Wow that's pretty crazy. I love that Valve is a juggernaut of gaming yet still
a private company. Any rumors as to what Valve's financials look like these
days? It has to be into the billions of revenue with Steam, etc. at this
point.

~~~
e_modad
That's interesting, I didn't really think about it until you mentioned it but
they _must_ making a lot of money.

I couldn't find any specific rumors or estimates that are more recent than
2011. I did find a VentureBeat article from Jan 22 2014 that said that Dota 2
made $80 M and TF2 made almost double that at $139 M in 2013.[1]

Pricewaterhouse Coopers "Global entertainment and media outlook: 2013 - 2017"
estimates that globally "entertainment and media" will grow at a compound
annual growth rate of 5.6% over the next five years.[2]

So, even if you assume that they won't release Left4Dead 3, Half Life 3, etc
over the next few years, just from Dota2 and TF2 alone their revenue for 2014
is likely to be more than $230 M. And that's a bare minimum guess. It's likely
to be much more than that. But that's the lower bound of the estimate I guess.

Not bad.

[1] [http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/22/doat-2-made-
around-80-mill...](http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/22/doat-2-made-
around-80-million-in-microtransaction-revenues-in-2013-according-to-analyst-
firm/) [2] [https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/global-entertainment-media-
outlook...](https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/global-entertainment-media-outlook/data-
insights.jhtml)

~~~
Strom
I think it's pretty safe to assume that all their own game revenue is dwarfed
by the 30% steam cut they take on the sales of everyone else's games.

~~~
devbug
And then the asinine fees to change your Steam profile's background...

And then the asinine fees to sell an item to another player...

And then the asinine fees they take for community map rotations...

And then the asinine fees they take for community skins and items...

It's both amazing and disgusting how much money Valve makes from their little
value-add services.

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staunch
I just can't wait until someone cracks the nut on competition FPS again. FPS
competition is interesting to people who don't even play games, the way boxing
is, so it will inevitably be huge at some point.

~~~
Ono-Sendai
CS:GO is becoming quite popular. [http://blog.counter-
strike.net/](http://blog.counter-strike.net/)

~~~
vidyesh
It always has been. And the popularity never dropped. CS:GO just replaced
CS:Source and CS from being the second most popular game on steam.

------
GyrosOfWar
Also to note, the American qualifiers for the tournament will start tomorrow
and run until Thursday. There's a good mix of North and South American teams
in the qualifier and the stuff that is planned for the broadcast seems pretty
exciting.

