Ever since developers learned they could redirect their marketing budgets towards their community in the form of professional tournaments, the landscape for games has shifted. And no company has done more to do that than Valve, which now has the curious honour of running not only the world's most premier digital distribution service in Steam but also the most lucrative event in gaming - The International.

The International wasn't the first million dollar tournament in history. That honour belongs to the CPL World Tour back in 2005, where US$1 million was spread out over a series of tour stops across the world for Painkiller. The Championship Gaming Series also handed out US$1 million over its two televised seasons to the winning team, although that team comprised of players from Counter-Strike: Source, Project Gotham Racing (Forza in the second season), FIFA and Dead or Alive.

But earlier this week, a group of DOTA 2 players received the opportunity to become the first guaranteed millionaires. After a gruelling fortnight of the highest-level DOTA action imaginable and with first place offering just over US$5 million, each winning team member would receive at least US$1 million.

That doesn't include any arrangements the team might have had with their own sponsors and supporters, or whether coaches also partook in the final winnings - but it still makes The International the first tournament to offer prizes on this scale.

The action began with 16 teams, either invited directly from their performance throughout the last year or through a series of regional qualifiers, fighting it out over 15 games in a massive group stage. The top 2 teams earned a spot in the Main Event, guaranteeing a minimum of US$655,866.

Those that finished between 3rd and 10th were forced to battle it out in a second stage, with two winners moving through to the Main Event upper bracket. Teams that fell in the first round of this second stage were knocked out, taking home a mere US$49,190, while the others were seeded into the lower bracket of the Main Event depending on their progress.

Eventually the stage was set for three days of the "Main Event", with crowd favourites Evil Geniuses the sole Western representative against the Chinese triumvirate of Team DK, Newbee and Vici Gaming.

The event would eventually belong to Newbee, however, having made their way from the first round of the second stage to the grand final. Excluding the grand final itself, Newbee won 12 of their last 15 games in The International, knocking out multiple fan favourites along the way.

A running theme of the tournament was all-in pushes, resulting in some remarkably quick games. The Main Event was littered with matches effectively ending by the 10 and 15 minute marks, with towers dropping astonishingly fast thanks to some aggressive drafting. Vici Gaming was a particular proponent of this strategy, having steamrolled their way through the initial group phase with a 12-3 record.

Sadly, the finals were a bit of an anti-climax - as much as one can be with US$5 million on the line. The theme of the tournament, stomping your opponent into the ground before the crowd can get settled, rang true, although fortunately with the release of a new hero - Goblin Techies! - and balance changes, we may not see DOTA 2 matches dominated by hyper-aggressive pushes again for quite some time.

So the question remains: where to from here? Valve has already come out and said the concepts used to make The International work could be transferred over to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Indeed, the classic first-person shooter already has a high degree of crowdfunded tournaments, with multiple US$250,000 events at the European Dreamhack LAN events last year.

For the winners, their lives will change forever. After all, with one event, they have become the richest gamers in history - in terms of money won, with the former champion of eSports winnings, Lee "Jaedong" Jae Dong, having only just over US$526,000 from about a decade of StarCraft tournaments.

23 of the richest 30 gamers are there now solely because of this year's The International. That's a stunning accomplishment for an industry as infantile as professional gaming. Some pundits in the media have their doubts about the viability of eSports and its wider appeal but, as The International has proved, those arguments are surely void - because gamers can now, quite literally, become millionaires.

Alex Walker is the regular gaming columnist for ABC Tech + Games. You can follow him on Twitter at @thedippaeffect.