Dota 2 topped the charts as the most generous esports title in terms of prize pool payouts. The game dished out estimated $41,326,000 across 117 total events in 2018.
Dota 2’s 2018 Total Prize Pool Money
Dota 2 has long been known as one of the most generous competitive titles in the world, hence the rivalry at a professional level. According to Esportsearnigs.com, the game dished out 24% of its live-long prize pools in 2018 alone. Overall, Dota 2 has managed to award around $172 million across 1040 tournaments in the years the game has been active.
The International 2018 (TI8) stole the spotlight, contributing the bulk of these winnings, with the 2018 edition setting a fresh record at $25 million, $11 million of which went to the winning team from OG who took a brief hiatus from the game, but are now determined to return once again.
The most important and grossing events throughout 2018 revolved around several renowned events:
- ESL One Birmingham (along with other Majors)
- China Dota 2 Supermajor
- The Kuala Lumpur Major (part of the 2019 competitive season
The Richest Dota 2 Players
Almost unknown until 2018, team OG managed to all climb in the list of top-15 earners following their decisive victory during TI8. Johan “N0tail” Sundstein, the team’s captain, is himself the second most grossing player in the history of the game.
N0tail’s total winnings stand at $3,735,055 and he’s featured in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 List. He’s slightly behind Kuro “KuroKy” Takhasomi who holds the prime spot with $4.1 million to his name. KuroKy is also a known digital card player and he has been involved in the game before it became a stand-alone product.
KuroKy’s Dota 2 squad, Team Liquid, performed well, placing 4th in the overall standing. The team missed out on the Kuala Lumpur Major, but it will be returning for the 2019 competitive season, which has now been shifted on Asia, with TI9 slated for Shanghai.
Valve has leveraged a clever fan-driven way of backing the main event and amass an even more-impressive prize pool through the use of battle passes. In 2018, the first-day sales of the special tokens exceeded the 2017’s levels by 116.4 per cent.
Battle passes will be used in 2019 as well with Valve allocating even more money, supposedly. With the game’s earnings having a hard cap, it’s interesting to see how far the developers are prepared to go in boosting the game’s overall popularity.
Epic Games, the developers of Fortnite, vowed $100 million for the 2018/2019 alone, more than half what Dota 2 has committed in terms of life-long money when it comes to prizing money. Yet, Dota 2 remains one of the best competitive games in the world.
