Dota 2: The International 12’s Prize Pool is at ~$2.5M just A Day After the Compendium

Even though The International 12 Compendium became available yesterday, the Prize Pool for TI 12 is already at ~ USD 2.5M.

The last couple of days have been really interesting for every Valve fan. In case you do not know, the company released Counter-Strike 2, as well as the Compendium for The International 12. The latter is one of the most important things in Dota 2, and even though a lot of people are disappointed with it, there is no arguing it features a lot of cool options.

Besides all of the perks, The International 12 compendium is very important because a portion of the money used to get it is used to fund TI 12’s prize pool. Speaking of the devil, let’s learn more about it.

The International 12 Prize Pool

At the time of writing this article, the prize pool for The International 12 is close to $2.5M USD, which means it's up by almost $900K USD in just 24 hours. What’s interesting is that Valve’s base prize pool is set to $1.6M USD.

As mentioned, 25% of the amount of money that Valve gets from The International 12 Compendium goes towards the prize pool. As we’ve seen from past years, this is definitely a working formula because events like TI 10 had jaw-dropping prize pools of over $40M. Sadly, we do not expect to see the same thing here.

For starters, this year’s Compendium became available just a couple of days before the tournament. As you know, TI12 starts a few days from now, meaning that there isn’t enough time for players to contribute enough to the prize pool. 

Another problem that some people will notice after checking The International 12 Compendium is that the thing does not give enough cosmetic items. Most people expected to find at least a few options like Immortal Chests or even an Arcana. However, Valve decided not to include any of it, at least for now. This will definitely have a bad impact on the popularity of the item.

The International 12’s Prize Pool Compared to Previous TIs

Since The International 12 Compendium does not appeal to everyone, it’s probably not a surprise that TI 12’s prize pool is not going as well as previous years. If we compare it with other Internationals, we can see that it’s actually one of the worst. In fact, the prize pool increase right now is even lower than the one during The International 2015, which was 8 years ago. 

As much as we want to say that things will get better, we do not expect this to happen. In fact, it seems like TI 12’s prize pool will be lower than the one in 2014, which is not a good sign. Valve should have released the Compendium much earlier and provided more perks so that people would have more motivation to buy it. 

Another thing that will have an effect on TI 12’s prize pool is the arrival of CS2. There is no arguing that this game will get a lot of attention, including from some Dota 2 players who like the franchise. Since CS2 is a game from the same company that created Dota 2, releasing a big item for our favorite game at the same time when you are releasing the successor of one of the most iconic shooters of all time was definitely not a good idea.

What do we expect?

Now that The International 12 Compendium is out, we just have to wait and see whether TI 12’s prize pool can bounce back. Considering that the Riyadh Masters 2023 had a massive $15M reward, we expect it to remain the event with the highest prize pool in 2023. This is a shame because TI used to be a tournament like no other. With that said, we wouldn’t be surprised if Valve decided to do this on purpose because the prize pool of some of the latest TIs was just too high.