Dota 2’s TI10 Breaks Its Old Record for the Biggest Prize Pool in Esports

Ti10 2020 battle pass prize pool record
Image credit: Valve Corporation

The event might not be coming soon, but the prize pool is already there. The Dota 2 International 2020 already gathered over $34,3434,651 in prize money!

Esports events come in different formats and can vary greatly in terms of prize pools. There are events with thousands of dollars, others with hundreds of thousands and some with millions. No single event can surpass The Dota 2 International though as it once again broke the old record.

How Is the Prize Pool So Big?

Each year months before the start of The International Valve release the annual Battle Pass. Inside the latter, players can find various skins, emotes, voice lines, announcers, terrain, and much more. In order to gain levels on the pass and unlock the various rewards, players can complete challenges, achievements or bet with coins. There’s one trick though, completing everything without spending extra money will only get you so many levels. Chances are the thing you want will be out of your reach, so buying levels is almost a must for most players. 25% of all the sales surrounding the Battle Pass go directly into the prize pool for The International 10. This basically means that if the current pool is $34 million, Valve made another $102 million.

The old record belonged to the previous edition of TI, The International 2019 which gathered US$34,330,068 in prize money.

Ti10 prize pool
Image credit: dota2.prizetrac.kr

That number has now been officially surpassed by the current Battle Pass as the purse for TI10 keeps growing. Note that the pass is still far from over, as there are still two items on the way - Immortal Treasure III and the Windranger arcana. Will they increase the pool even further? Probably yes, since the only way to obtain the treasure would be to spend more money on levels, while the arcana requires level 575.

The 2020 Battle Pass is set to come to an end on September 19. At least that’s the information we’ve got for now, Valve can always decide to extend it further. We doubt they have any interest to do so though as the old record is already broken and there’s still no sign of slowing down. Since the prize pool surpassed the old one, all Battle Pass owners will receive an extra 10 levels! Thanks, GabeN! Another 10 levels will be distributed to everyone if the prize pool hits $40 million. Will it though?

Stay tuned for more Dota 2 news and check out EarlyGame or the EarlyGame Youtube channel for everything gaming and esports.

Tasho Tashev

Law graduate from Sofia University turned gaming journalist. Gaming has always been a passion of mine since I was a kid (shocker I know) so it was only a matter of time before I started writing about it. My high-school...