TI 1Ø
Since 2011, my year has begun not with celebration and confetti, but rather Gabe Newell’s baritone — “Welcome to the International.”
There’s no tournament like it. It has no equal.
Last year, TI 9’s total purse was $34,330,068.
TI 10’s total will be more than $40,000,000.
The Super Bowl, but for stakes typically reserved for the World Series of Poker.
In 2015 I played against EG in the first round of the upper bracket of TI5.
The winning team, for reaching top 6, would guarantee themselves 1.2 million dollars. One series, to guarantee over a million dollars cash.
It wasn’t finals weekend. It was Tuesday.
It’s fucking incredible. From a pure spectator POV, the two weeks of TI are the dream of any Dota fan. You know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that these teams are playing to WIN. They play to prove that in their passion, their chosen discipline, they are the BEST. There can be no argument. It’s TI. There’s millions on the line. 18 teams try their best, 1 team wins. To win is to become legend, and dreams are dashed daily.
But at what cost? How has TI affected the Dota competitive scene at large?
Hop in Marty.
Since TI4, all winners have become instant millionaires
(*before taxes, sorry PPD).
There’s some interesting details— consider the first two TI’s, more than half of the prizepool going to the winners. Why?
Because that way first place could be a million fucking dollars.
You might not remember the buzz generated by the first TI. It was insane.
What was effectively still an open beta convinced nearly all professional Dota players to immediately swap from WC3 to Dota 2.
A couple prominent Dota teams even ignored their invitations because they thought the event was a hoax. No surprise; this was the first seven digit esport prizepool. Ever.
For the month of August the entire gaming universe tuned in. It was one of the first major broadcasts for two-month old Twitch (time flies, jeez).
The winner’s cut declined to 46% by TI4 (just enough to ensure each winning player received a million fucking dollars) & then to it’s all time low of 36% for TI5 (again, sorry PPD) before once again rising to 44% for TI6, TI7, & TI8.
Something strange happened last year.
TI 8 OG took home 44% — $11,234,158.
For TI9, even though 2nd, 3rd, & 4th all received a lower percentage, the winners took home an extra 1.5% for a total of 45.5% of the split.
Why? I’ve got a guess.
The TI prizepool split isn’t typically announced until just before the International begins. In TI9’s case, Valve posted the split seven days before the event, with the pool sitting at $32.89 million. The distribution was announced as follows;
1st — $14,599,910–45.5%
2nd — $4,171,403–13%
3rd — $2,887,895–9%
4th — $1,925,262–6%
5th-6th — $1,123,070–3.5%
7th-8th — $802,193–2.5%
9th-12th — $641,754–2%
13th-16th — $481,316–1.5%
17th-18th — $80,219–0.25%
As of the announcement, only eighteen days of crowdfunding remained. It’s no surprise that Valve would want to reward their winners with the most $ in all of esport… and a 44% cut MIGHT not have been enough to beat Epic’s $3,000,000 first prize.
(In this case it would have been; barely. If OG received only 43.69% of the final total pool, Bugha would be on top of the leaderboard as the winner of the largest individual purse in esport history. Instead, #’s 1–5 are OG.)
Maybe Johan, Ceb and the boys won more than Bugha, but Dota’s champions didn’t do the American late night talk show circuit. Fortnite’s Bugha did.
Fornite saw its playerbase increase by 100 million since their World Cup.
Dota’s has declined 20% since TI 9. Fortnite has virtual concerts, weekly updates, and a marketing budget. Dota has new Dota Plus content, coming *soon*.
Like most esports, Dota 2’s world championship serves primarily as a marketing tool for the developer. Every August, Valve cements themselves as “bigger & better” than rival publishers.
But unlike those competitors, their support begins and ends in August.
Secret is currently on the most insane tear we’ve ever seen in Dota.
They peaked at a Glicko2 (ELO for nerds) rating of 2074.39.
The highest ever recorded. They are 86–14 over their last 100 maps.
The results of the last 7 major Dota 2 tournament finals are as follows.
WePlay Pushka League…Secret 3–0 over VP.P
DotaPit Season 2. ………Secret 3–0 over Liquid
ESL Birmingham. ………Secret 3–0 over Alliance
Blast Bounty Hunt. ……..Secret 3–0 over OG
Beyond EPIC. ……………Secret 3–0 over Nigma
Omega League..………….Secret 3–0 over OG
DotaPit Season 3…………Secret 3–0 over VP.P
But if you talk to outsiders, the Dota storyline they’re the most familiar with is still OG winning back to back TI’s. Many members even in our own community still consider the above achievements moot — Secret didn’t win TI. Maybe they’ve got a point. After all, Secret’s 6 month reign of dominance has earned them $592,940.
EG made more than twice that for beating me on a Tuesday at TI5.
Have you seen one non-endemic article on Puppey recently? A single feature in a mainstream magazine? This man has been captaining a Dota team for nearly FIFTEEN YEARS. He started as a teenager, and now in his thirties he’s STILL leading a team, and they’re currently on an unprecedented reign of dominance.
Nope. Nothing. Nada. Nobody cares.
Win TI, then talk. Clement hasn’t done that since 2011.
Over the years, more and more money has been funneled to the TI prizepool. More and more importance is put on TI, and less and less to the rest of the year.
After TI9, the top four teams at the event (OG, Nigma, Secret & PSG.LGD)
ALL took the first major off. It must be concerning when the four teams who won 73.5% of the total prizepool ($25,232,599!!) all immediately disappear from pro Dota’s story for nearly three months.
Ana, Topson, Ceb, Jerax, N0tail; OG’s 5 man squad that won TI8 and TI9 have competed in 127 pro Dota 2 games together. If you include qualifiers, 73 of those maps were at The International.
What many consider the best pro Dota 2 roster of all time have played only 54 games outside of TI.
Before TI begins, Valve traditionally hold meetings with all parties involved.
One with the players.
One with the talent.
One with the team organizations.
At the pow-wow with organizations pre-TI9, a question was asked —
“We don’t understand what teams do for Dota 2. Why do we need you?”
Well, what do teams do to earn their cut?
Effectively every player in the NBA/Premier League/NFL has their own;
Lawyer
Agent
Accountant
Financial Adviser
Publicist
Stylist
Assistant
Manager
Therapist/Psychologist
Personal Trainer
In Dota and much of esport, only superstars can afford even half of the above. Most players don’t have anyone; except for their team.
And the teams responsibility is to ensure you don’t have to do a goddamn thing but play your game to the best of your ability. After all, the incentive structure for players within Dota 2 is very simple.
Players in Dota want to WIN. Not interview, not make content, not stream, not tour through talk shows.
Teams are the ones who want streams and content.
Fnatic want their players front and center stage for as many viewer hours as possible.
Complexity isn’t at risk of retiring.
Liquid wants a competitive circuit outlined in advance so they can properly plan their year/pitch sponsors based on their guaranteed involvement in high quality matches.
NIP, EG, and VP all have a vested interest in developing an ecosystem that allows for the long-term health & growth of the competitive scene.
Ever wonder why the top three teams in the west (Secret, OG and Nigma) all began as player owned organizations with no external sponsors?
Before the Boston Major, Valve updated the in-game fantasy system.
All Battle Pass owners received 12 Player Card Packs, but they were also directly purchasable for $.49. Rare cards were Silver or Gold, and provided bonuses to the number of fantasy points your selection would earn, such as +15% points for assists or +10% for kills.
Complexity (my organization at the time) and a couple other qualified teams reached out to Valve asking for a share of the revenue generated. After all, Valve was using their team logos, their players, their IP, and selling it in-game without giving the teams themselves, well, anything. Some organizations estimated that the revenue could approach six figures per team, even if splitting 50/50 with Valve.
The response from the Dota 2 team was (paraphrasing)
“We didn’t realize that was a problem. We can take out your teams IP if you’d like. This feature makes a negligible amount of money anyway”
Ultimately teams were left with two options — publicly explain the situation and pray for enough community outcry to strongarm change (no other weapons exist) or just shut up and go away.
They chose the latter. Only a moron would bite the hand that feeds.
Remember pennants? They represented ~$50,000 to $100,000 in revenue annually to popular teams. Enough to hire a couple content creators, an extra coach, to pay 2–3 months of top-end salary.
Alas, our Gods are not motivated by paltry five-to-six figure sums.
They are no longer functional.
Remember tournament compendiums?
The Summit 2’s prizepool went from $100,000 to $310,912 thanks to the community’s purchase of in-game cosmetics linked to the event.
Comparatively, after Valve stopped supporting TO’s creating their own in-game compendiums, the Summit 5 tried crowdfunding through their own BTS website selling real world merchandise and collectibles.
The prizepool increased from $100,000 to $101,044.
Virtual hats sell better than real ones, and Valve made themselves the only merchant.
Competing esports put effort into ensuring those participating in the growth of their scene share in its success with a variety of different methods; creator codes, league revenue sharing, digital & physical merchandising. They recognize the necessity of allowing organizations to have minor ownership in the continued success of their system. Skin in the game.
Comparatively, the zeitgeist within Valve is that teams should look at sharing their teams prize cut as their primary source of revenue generation.
Yet as we can see above, the best teams in Dota go it alone. What could possibly incentivize a team of multi-millionaires that already won a TI to give up 20% of their winnings? How do you find a middle-ground? Players need support throughout the lean season; teams need a share of the money that can only be found at TI.
It’s all or nothing; does your roster qualify for TI, or don’t they.
What teams are comfortable making that bet?
Complexity, Cloud9, Cr4ZY, Immortals, Optic, Dignitas, CLG, Flipsid3, mousesports, Chaos, and PENTA all used to be. They’re gone now.
G2, 100 Thieves, Vitality, Faze, TSM, NRG, Rogue, Astralis, Luminosity, Envy & various other brands simply never entered this space though many may have wanted to. Instability and an unknown future drive interested parties away from our game and into others.
Bear in mind that the barrier to entry in Dota 2 is SIGNIFICANTLY reduced in comparison to any of the numerous franchised leagues in other esports.
GESC: Indonesia Dota 2 Minor is the first Valve Corporation sanctioned tournament in Indonesia and will feature the world’s best teams and an Indonesia representative who will compete for the largest prize purse in the country — $300,000 USD and qualifying points to The International 2018.
Mar 15–18, 2018GESC: Thailand Dota2 Minor is the first Valve Corporation sanctioned tournament in Thailand and will feature the world’s best teams and a Thailand representative who will compete for the largest prize purse in the country — $300,000 USD and qualifying points to The International 2018.
May 9–12, 2018
It may have been Valve sanctioned, and the teams certainly got the DPC points, but to date no players or talent have received a dime.
For those of you in the back;
At two official Valve DPC tournaments, no players or talent have been paid their winnings or their wages.
I did extensive research for this article and cannot find a single example of a developer backed esport event not paying out its players.
Things could easily be put right. My back of the envelope math puts money owed at around ~$700,000…. or about .6% of Valve’s cut from the TI10 Compendium sales.
If Valve wants to continue to divert all revenue streams so that they flow only into their own coffers, shouldn’t they also take ownership of the scene at large? GESC may have been the tournament operator, but teams participated with the knowledge Valve had given their blessing. Does that not tacitly admit responsibility?
Where does the buck stop if not in Bellevue?
When Valve cares, they remain the best.
Steam is still the world’s most popular gaming marketplace nearly two decades later.
Two of the top three esports are Valve IP.
True Sight is far and away the best esport content created, year after year (it’s once again nominated for an Esport Award, and will have my vote).
I have no doubt that if it became a priority, the Dota 2 competitive circuit could rival or best any competitor.
It just isn’t a priority.
What happened to the dream? How winning TI is possible for ANYONE.
Just look at OG TI8; from open qualifiers to improbable TI champions.
What advice should I give to up and coming players? Keep grinding, get a second job, move back in with Mom, do whatever it takes to keep your dream alive? Eventually, hopefully, you’ll make it.
How can I sell others on a dream that feels more like a marketing scheme?
As I write this, I’m watching G2 play Team Liquid for the LoL World Championships live from Shanghai. The group stage this year has broken all the viewership records (*even though their talent’s rap game is weak AF).
Lebron & the Lakers took a 3–1 lead in the NBA finals.
Brady’s old ass just threw five td’s.
Live events are certainly possible. I would know; I spent July 28th → September 7th in a bubble, along with ~fifty assorted colleagues to put on the Omega League.
We had zero coronavirus cases.
We could have TI. The players, teams, talent all want it, that’s for sure. At the very least, we could have something. Shit, the community already paid for it.
TLDR;
- Valve monopolized all methods of in-game monetization, ensuring only TI could reap the benefits of massive community support.
- Seven months into a pandemic & $160million community dollars later, TI is still indefinitely postponed, along with the DPC.
- If not for the initiative of numerous teams working in partnership with TO’s, we wouldn’t have DotA to watch. The competitive scene has survived throughout 2020 in spite of Valve, not thanks to them.
Solution? I’m a moron, but I’ll try.
Cap the TI prizepool at 25 million. First place gets 10.
It’s enough to keep players motivated, I’ve asked.
Open the system. End the DPC. Let anyone throw an event anytime. The market can work it out.
TI Qualifying Points to be earned based on the amount of regional representation/global rankings/total prizepool/whatever that a tournament possesses. Keep the rest in a war chest. Use it to match the $$ of any event worthy to count for the year’s journey to TI.
I’m not asking for handouts. The community has sponsored TI’s ever growing prize pool since 2014. There are numerous notable veterans within this space that would happily accept stewardship of Dota’s future moving forwards. Let those who have demonstrated their love for Dota over the past decade have the reigns.
You wanted the whole pie. You’ve got it.
Now please, put it in the fucking oven or let someone else bake.
— Kyle
