The International 2023 prize pool is set to look very different from what the Dota 2 community is used to.

Valve switched gears this year and instead of releasing a full Battle Pass months in advance of The International to boost the prize pool, they went with a small Compendium that features no shiny cosmetics and no goals for the community to grind by either spending long hours in the game or by spending a considerable amount of money.

TI12 Compendium was created “to elevate the players, the teams, and the artistry that is high-level Dota played at The International,” said Valve a week ago, when they released it. The immediate effect of a bare update focused on stickers and an alloy Aegis replica that can be unlocked at level 300 is reflected in the prize pool.

As with every year, the TI starting prize pool is $1,600,000. A week after the TI12 Compendium release, the community contributed $1,215,678 which brings the prize pool to $2,815,678.

^{TI12 prize pool via dota2.prizetrac.kr}

Slowest TI prize pool raise since 2013

As soon as the community saw the Compendium for this year’s TI, the expectations for the event to keep his fame for having the largest prize pool in esports vanished. However, the TI prize pool being below 3M dollars a week after the release wasn’t on anyone’s Bingo card either.

This marks the slowest prize pool increase since The International 2013 (TI3), which was the first TI edition when Valve introduced a way for the community to contribute to the prize pool.

In 2013, the prize pool was at $1,875,000 a week after the first-ever Compendium was released. It’s worth mentioning that back then, the community had 75 days to bring its contributions and the total prize pool reached $2,874,380.

The International prize pool might have just gone a full circle and ten years later we are looking at a very similar total as in 2013.

TI12 is set to kick off in a week’s time, on the 12th of October in Seattle, Washington with the group stage matches. Along with moving away from the Battle Pass concept for TI, Valve also changed the tournament format, splitting the action in three separate segments across the month of October.

TI12 schedule

Road to The International

Group Stage: October 12-15
Playoffs: October 20-22

The International itself

Finals weekend: October 27-29

TI12 prize pool is below 3M dollars a week after Compendium release