Houston, We're in Trouble - Præmiepulje The International 2022 Can't Break Past Record
Ihor MatusAfter the release of the Battle Pass this year, many in the Dota 2 community began to express negative attitudes towards Valve and the work they have done towards the new Battle Pass.
The latter is dedicated to The International 2022 and 25% of the money received goes to the prize pool of the annual tournament. Since the introduction of the first Battle Pass in 2013, Valve and the Dota 2 community have set new records every year that have helped The International raise huge amounts. The total amount raffled between the participants of The International 2021, for a second, exceeded the $40,000,000 threshold. This year, things didn't go according to plan.
The reason for this was most likely the Battle Pass, which was not liked by many players, commentators, analysts and other figures in the Dota 2 world. A small number of really interesting things were criticized.
There was only 1 Arcana on Faceless Void that many didn't like, as well as 2 new personalities on Crystal Maiden and Phantom Assassin that were more admired than Faceless Void's new skin. The latter were only announced and they are not yet in the game. It also caused outrage from the Dota 2 community.
The new Faceless Void did not like the players
Probably, if Valve had released the Battle Pass earlier and immediately added the personalities of Crystal Maiden and Phantom Assassin to the game, then now we would see completely different indicators.
By the way, about the numbers - in the first hour of the sale of the Battle Pass in 2022, I collected less than all previous Battle Passes. During the first day, the Battle Pass collected $6,969,304, which is less than in the case of The International 2021 and The International 2019. The latter collected $8,152,515 and $7,419,288, respectively, over the same period.
At the time of writing, 5 days and 15 hours have passed since the start of sales of the Battle Pass 2022. During this time, the Battle Pass has collected $9,682,834, which is inferior to the performance of the two previous The Internationals. In 2021 and 2019, the Battle Pass raised $11,648,184 and $10,918,139, respectively.
Thus, we can see that this year the prize pool of The International will most likely not be able to beat the record of its predecessor for the first time in history. It is certainly difficult to maintain such performance for nine years, but if more interesting content was released, which the players expected, the goal could be achieved without any problems. So far, we are watching how the prize pool of the new The International will not be able to reach the level of the championship, which was 3 years ago.
The International 2022 will take place in Singapore from October 15th to 30th. The group stage will last 4 days, from October 15th to 18th, and after that, the playoffs begin on October 20th. The top 20 teams from around the world will battle it out for the title and a prize pool determined by Battle Pass sales.