Team Liquid faced off against MVP Phoenix but the result was a rout that mirrored the Brazil/Germany World Cup semi-final, which was live at precisely the same time.

There's no doubt a new age of gaming has arrived. Before, games deemed worthy enough for tournament play did so on the basis of luck and an groundswell of community support - the latter often modding and tweaking the game to the point where it was nearly unrecognisable.

These days developers deliberately court professional gaming, creating titles appealing solely to the competitor in all of us. It's a strategy tht Blizzard has employed with great effect for its Starcraft series and Riot Games and Valve have built on that, elevating League of Legends and DOTA 2 tournaments into the stratosphere.

But while the world championship series for League of Legends is a remarkable spectacle, for its presentation, gameplay and wow factor, there's one crucial element that swings firmly in DOTA 2's favour: money. More than US$10 million: that's the prize pool for this year's iteration of The International, a fortnight long love-affair for gamers all around the world to travel to their lounges, pubs and clubs or even the finals at Seattle itself to witness a series of life-changing matches.

The grand finals themselves will certainly be a multicultural affair. Over 40 gamers will be taking part from China alone, a rarity considering the difficulty Chinese gamers have acquiring visas to travel to the United States. Another 19 will be representing Europe on the big stage, while Malaysia and Sweden will have more players attending than the host nation.

It's worth remembering just how important progressing to each stage of the grand finals is. The teams that qualify from the round-robin stage, which will be completed by Saturday, are guaranteed a minimum of US$47,225. Making the top eight will see teams walk home with a little under US$500,000, while the winners of the entire event will share a staggering US$4,827,406, or 46 per cent of the prize pool.

Let's take a look at the qualifiers from each of the regions, starting with our local region, South East Asia. MVP Phoenix, who lost out to Team Liquid ended up tying for top place with Arrow Gaming after a 10-team round-robin. Arrow Gaming then won two matches straight to dump their rivals to the lower bracket of the playoffs, and the grand finals went along similar lines.

The European qualifiers were much more volatile. Russian team RoX took out the round-robin stage without dropping a single game, but runners up mousesports won their face-off. Rival russian team Virtus.Pro then made a heroic charge to knock out the remaining challengers, before a tense finals against mousesports. The finals went all the way, but the second match in particular was a cracker.

But the intensity of the European event was tripled over in China, where five teams were forced into tiebreakers from the group stage alone. LGD Gaming and CIS Game eventually triumphed through the gauntlet to face off twice in the playoffs.

The North American qualifiers mirrored their Chinese counterparts after the group stage as well, with the top two teams tied on 8 wins each and a three-team tiebreaker required to determine third and fourth place. The final place ended up falling to Team Liquid and North American Rejects, who did audiences the favour of going the distance.

Each of the runners up from the regional qualifiers were given one last chance through a wildcard tournament. Team Liquid from North America faced off early Wednesday morning against MVP Phoenix from South Korea, but the result was a rout that mirrored the Brazil/Germany World Cup semi-final, which was live at precisely the same time.

The round-robin stage of The International kicked off from early Thursday morning and will continue through until early Sunday morning. The entire tournament, which will be streamed live and viewable from within the DOTA 2 client, will be over by July 21. You can follow the event direct through Valve's portal for The International; the Joindota.com website also has excellent coverage, including times and dates for all of the upcoming matches.

By then, the world's most remarkable gaming tournament will have come to a close. After that, it's up to League of Legends, perhaps even World of Tanks, to see what they can offer.

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