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Usually when The International (TI) comes around, the community expects the prize pool to break records yet again. However, this year saw a massive decline in The International 2022’s (TI11) prize pool as the sales of this year’s Battle Pass dropped heavily compared to last year. The International’s prize pool is mainly crowdfunded by the community as 25% of all Battle Pass sales are added to the prize pool.
However, Maximilian "qojqva" Bröcker noted that the lack of content within this year’s Battle Pass is hurting the TI11 prize pool.
Qojqva claims that this year’s Battle Pass is too unattractive for players
During a recent livestream, Maximilian "qojqva" Bröcker did a search on TI11’s prize pool as this year’s TI will be held in Singapore. However, he soon discovered that this year’s prize pool is the third lowest amongst all iterations of The International. Despite the number of players increasing to new heights since 2018, he is surprised that the prize pool is lower than what he would have expected.
“It’s so bad, this year. I don’t think the game is dying since I thought that the number of players increased dramatically since 2018 but wow.” said qojqva.
The former Alliance and Team Liquid mid laner then said that the main reason for the slow rise in this year’s prize pool is due to the lack of content in the annual Battle Pass, as half of the content will only be released after TI11, according to Valve. Furthermore, 25% of each Battle Pass sold is added to TI11’s prize pool, which means that not a lot of players are buying the Battle Pass this year compared to last year.
“Do you think that this year’s Battle Pass just sucks or what, guys? Because this is kinda….just crazy. It just sucks guys. I mean, half of the Battle Pass content is to be released soon, which is a huge problem in my opinion.” said qojqva.
Valve, the developers of Dota 2, were under a lot of pressure after the community criticized them for several reasons, like the lack of the content in this year’s Battle Pass and the decision to allow PGL to allegedly broadcast remotely from Norway.
