Savyasaachi

Who would have thought playing “video games” could make you a millionaire? You must be thinking it’s one of those jokes from 9GAG.com, but let me go ahead and disappoint you by saying, no.

Just a few months back, in June 2014, the world saw its biggest event IN E-Sports history: A gaming tournament that offered its winners, not just 1 million or 2 million, but 10 million dollars! Let’s close our jaws, before the person sitting next to us asks us to do so.

But before getting into the details of the What, How and Why of the 10 million dollars, here is a brief introduction of where it all began:

Your average, everyday computer geek takes a simple program of creating maps and creates a small map within a game called Warcraft 3 and names it Defence Of The All-stars (DOTA). His name, Abdul Ismail. The map was a 5v5 team-based strategy game, where one team had to destroy the other teams “Ancient” in order to win, where each player would be given a character to control throughout the duration of the game. The game, having an online community where you could share your maps, saw the map go viral. Hundreds and thousands began playing it. This encouraged Abdul, then known as ‘ICEFROG’ to further develop it.

Few years passed and the map caught up to the level of being played at the famous WCG (World Cyber Games). As the years passed on, the game became so huge that Valve®, who were smart enough to realize its potential, swiftly picked up the developer of the map, Abdul. Alongside him, Valve’s very own programmers joined hands with him and developed a game and called it DOTA 2. What used to be a simple map within the game of Warcraft 3 was now a full-fledged game by itself.

Dota 2 saw its debut as the 1st ever standalone DOTA tournaments, hosted by Valve®, by the name ‘The International’. DOTA 2 was released initially in the months of 2011 as a BETA testing, where it was on invites-only basis. Those were the days where having access to the game was something really prized among its followers. Later, when it was publicly released, it saw a whopping 500,000 signups over a period of just 3 months.

In the initial few months, rumours and speculations were making waves in the online community, saying that, you would have to pay a sum of 20 dollars in order to have access to the game. This got some of the gamers puzzled, as it was a free to play map initially. But it was quickly made clear by Abdul, now known as Cyborgmatt, that he had intended for the game to be free-to-play. Valve® respected Abdul’s views and made it so. But doing so left the Valve® developers empty-handed for the work they were doing to constantly fix and update the game. To overcome the problem was the introduction of “Spoils of War”, a method of buying cosmetics for your favourite hero in order to make them look cool and fancy. This sort of micro-transactions kept the money coming in as the purchases were merely in dollars. With an online community so huge, it was a great marketing strategy to lure players in to purchase such items.

Each year hence, there has been an International, an event that was held as a hallmark by all the fans and followers of DOTA 2.

The first International was held at Gamescom in Cologne in the month of August 2011. It saw 16 teams invited from all over the world and sported a total prize pool of 1.6 million dollars, with the grand prize being a million dollars. The winner was Natus Vincere who took home the 1 million dollars.

The second International was held at Benaroya Hall in Seattle in the month of May 2012. The prize pool remained 1.6 million dollars, with the grand prize being the same 1 million dollars. The event saw Invictus Gaming taking home the grand prize after beating last year’s winner Natus Vincere. The legend of the Chinese teams being the powerhouses of the game was made very clear to the western world in the tournament.

But in 2013, a new idea was made to involve the online community of the game to help with the prize pool. There was an introduction of an in-game item called the Compendium, which was more of an online interactive platform for you to make your predictions, and have the community to decide on an all-star matchup to be played during the International. Thus, for every compendium purchased, a part of the monetary transaction was added to the prize pool of the tournament. This brought up the prize pool of The International to 2.8 million dollars, almost double that of the previous years, with the grand prize being 1.4 million dollars. Although the event was held at Benaroya Hall yet again, this time there was a reply by the Western teams against the Chinese powerhouses by securing both the 1st and 2nd places with Natus Vincere securing the 2nd place yet again.

Then came the year 2014, the fan base for the game by when had grown so huge that the prize pool for the 4th International reached 10 million dollars by June 17th, 3 weeks prior to the beginning of the International itself. This broke all the previous records for being the highest prize pool for any single E-sports event. People were amazed, astonished, confounded at the prize pool! It shook the foot holdings of the E-sports community in being able to raise so much money for the prize pool.

This time the event saw a mixup in the teams. The event venue was shifted to KeyArena in Seattle in order to accommodate the growing fan base. There were 3 different seating arrangements and the tickets for which was sold within just an hour. In order to prevent upsetting the large fan base from not being able to attend the International, “Pubstomps” were held where interested people could gather and watch the matches. And those who wanted to watch the matches at the comfort of their home could do so by watching the LIVE BROADCAST over at Twitch.tv

The event was broadcasted in 3 different languages, English, Russian, and Chinese. The main event was held from July 18th to July 21st, although the event saw its qualifying begin by May 12th. 11 teams were invited, where the remaining team to fill up the 5 slots were decided by 4 regional qualifiers being held at America, Europe, South-East Asia and China, and a final wildcard entry.

The event started out with the hype it had built over the past few months. Promising to entice its viewers and players, it did. The production value that was made seen on the live streams saw its casters being dressed up in suits in the most civilized way known.

The finals saw the teams ‘Newbee’ and ‘Vici Gaming’ face off each other in a best of 5. Of all the previous Internationals which saw the finals to be captivated by hour long, 5 nail biting matches, this International saw Newbee wiping the floor with Vici Gaming, with each match spanning not more than 20 mins. Clearly superior, the finals didn’t exactly turn out to be what the crowd expected them to be. Not a disappointment, but neither an expectation fulfilled. The 4th International saw its winners Newbee grab a grand prize of 5 million dollars. Making each one a millionaire if you do the math. Although the tournament saw the Chinese powerhouses reply with a 1st and 2nd finish. The Americans made it to the 3rd place, knocking the Europeans down to the 7th spot. This was clearly a wakeup call for the Europeans.

So back to the idea of being millionaires by playing video games. Team Newbee, just made it to the list of millionaire gamers, if there ever existed one. Seems too good to be true? It just so happens that it’s not a fairy tale anymore. If the 4th International promised to break all the records for the prize pool, who knows what the 5th International has waiting for us. All we can do is, wait and watch.