Nix stated that the main problem of The International 2025 is not the prize pool

Alexander "Nix" Levin said that the main problem of The International 2025 is not the prize pool, but the decline in the prestige of the Dota 2 championship, which negatively affects the pro scene.

The streamer said this during a broadcast on Twitch.

"It's not that the CS players have smaller prize pools - they just have higher salaries. You need to understand this, because it has a ***** effect. And the external prestige of the tournament is also important, when you see the whole epic: a beautiful and large arena, many spectators, stickers. There is different money there, they are calculated from other things: salaries, stickers, all that. In CS major - prestige. And the last tournament, Inta, was some kind of PGL Wallachia, where everyone sat in the basement in jackets.

If it is as miserable as last year, we can say that Dota will never return. It's not about money, it's about prestige"

Nix compared TI14 to CS2 tournaments, where the prize pool is smaller, but the tournaments themselves attract millions of viewers and are considered prestigious. According to him, it's about the organization of the competitions, and if Valve does not change its approach to Dota 2, it may never regain its former popularity and prestige.

Recall that Valve previously compensated all Dota 2 players due to the situation with The International 2025.