NS named Valve's main mistake in organizing The International

Yaroslav “NS” Kuznetsov believes that the participants of The International 2024 are more interested in the prize money than the title of the winner. Moreover, the streamer believes that Valve themselves are to blame for this situation, as the large prize money at last year's tournaments contributed to the formation of appropriate expectations for this year's tournament.

The streamer shared the relevant opinion in a private Twitch broadcast.

“I think The International should be more about playing for the title than the prize money. Valve themselves made a system where people count dollars. It's become very important. It wouldn't have been important to people if Valve hadn't initially hyped the prize pool. In League of Legends, it's very prestigious to win Wolrds. I mean, it's a penny raffle. They don't even give a million dollars for the first place. It's not about the money. Riot originally built the system so that it is prestigious to win the title, not money. In Dota, it's the opposite.”

The prize pool at TI13 barely crossed $2.4 million dollars, far less than last year's tournaments. For example, The International 2022 had a prize pool of $18.93 million, and the tournament's winner, the Tundra Esports lineup, took home more than $8.5 million. In 2021, the financial incentive of TI participants reached a peak and exceeded 40 million dollars. The winners of the tournament, Team Spirit, received more than 18.2 million dollars, and the outsiders, who left the championship first, were paid 100 thousand dollars each. Last year, the payments to the participants were significantly reduced. In 2023, the participants of the TI12 played 3.38 million.

Recall that earlier Alexander “Nix” Levin spoke about the reasons for the current problems in Dota 2, and also named the reason why Valve will try to maintain the popularity of Dota 2 for some time.