Valve’s The International 5 Dota 2 Championship Starts With $18 Million Prize Pool

Dota 2 fans likely are already familiar with TI, but for everyone else: Valve’s The International is an annual multi-million dollar Dota 2 tournament. This year, TI is in its fifth edition and continues to shatter records with a current prize pool of $18 million and is being played live at Seattle’s KeyArena. This year, the top ten Dota 2 teams from around the globe have been directly invited, while six more teams have fought hard through qualifiers and wild card stages just for the right to claim the final six spots, making a total of sixteen teams at the 2015 event.

$18 million is an unprecedented amount for an e-sports tournament, dwarfing even last year’s TI4 which was a record-setting $10.9 million. To add some perspective, its predecessor TI3 broke the record with its $2.87 million prize pool.  It is all the more impressive when considering that Valve contributes a flat base of $1.6 million to the TI tournaments, with the remainder of the prize pools generated by Dota 2 fans and players themselves. At that rate of growth, TI6 could be even more mind-boggling, but it’s too early to even think about that just yet.

Everyone can watch the TI5 games (and full game replays) from inside the free Dota 2 game client at their own native resolution with the option of five different language broadcasters. For more casual viewing Valve is hosting multiple streams at up to 1080p @ 60fps with included live stats streaming (may require a page refresh after games begin to enable). As with last year, there is a second English stream dedicated for people new to the game. Viewers also can simply watch via the myriad of main and secondary streams directly from Twitch.tv as well. Of course, don’t forget about official Pubstomp viewing parties, either.

Day one got off to a good start, though some audio hiccups and stream crashing problems have plagued things so far. For best results I do recommend in-game spectating where there will be no stream problems and viewers can choose multiple camera options including “player perspective” to see how the pros are doing it.