Dota 2 prize money quadruples in first quarter, compared to previous year

The prize money won by Dota 2 teams in the first quarter of 2013 has quadrupled compared to 2012. iG, Virtus.Pro and dignitas are leading the prize money table.

Prize Money by Team Q1/2013 - Top 10

Team USD-eq.

iG $32,000

Virtus.Pro $14,500

dignitas $8,500

LGD.int $8,500

Empire $8,200

fnatic $6,600

ABC $6,000

Team Liquid $5,500

Na'Vi $5,220

NoTidehunter $4,000

Total $130,315 Complete, unformatted list: Team USD-eq.

iG 32000

Virtus.Pro 14500

dignitas 8500

LGD.int 8500

Empire 8200

fnatic 6600

ABC 6000

Team Liquid 5500

Na'Vi 5220

NoTidehunter 4000

iCCup 3700

Neolution Orange 2800

First Departure 2500

Evil Geniuses 1600

TongFu 1600

LGD.cn 1600

MiTH.Trust 1300

3D Clan 1152

mousesports 1140

XX5 1012

Lions Pride 1000

Zenith 1000

Awake 1000

QPAD Red Pandas 1000

imaginary Gaming 793

TInB 640

paiN Gaming 640

Absolute Legends 640

NEXT.kz 512

Gamer University 500

Vivacity 500

AprilFoolDay 500

Chain Stack 500

HWA 492

Neolution.int 400

Enigma 340

WAND 300

Rat in the Dark 300

Ledion Dreamz 300

Mad Gaming 250

GraTs ThO 200

Dimaga 200

Thelema 200

Artyk Gaming 192

DTS2010 128

RdM 100

RoX.KIS 100

Kye 82

NC 82

Christoph “malnor” Helbig Malnor is former Editor-in-chief of GosuGamers.net, now a guest editor for Dota 2 and general eSports topics.

The total prize money distributed to Dota 2 teams has risen in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the previous year. If you count all tournaments finishing within Q1/2013, $130,315 were earned in the competitive scene just by tournament placements. Compared to the $30,640 from Q1/2012, that is a rise of +325%, so the prize money distributed in this part of the year has more than quadrupled.The top 3 positions in the prize money rankings are taken by iG, Virtus.Pro and dignitas. The three teams have won the G-League, The Defense and the RitMix Russian Dota 2 League respectively. Tied for third place is also the international squad of LGD.Teams iG, Virtus.Pro and LGD.int are also among the top single prize money winners. The offline final of G-League in Shanghai early March with it's RMB 250,000 was dominating the prize money of the first quarter of the year, but only accounted for about one third of the total prize money gained. Other big tournaments, prize money wise, were the online tournaments The Defense, the Armaggeddon Grand Slam in Singapore and the Techlabs Cup in Moscow.1stiG, G-League, Shanghai: RMB200,0002ndVirtus.Pro, The Defense, Online: $10,0003rdLGD.int G-League, Shanghai: RMB50,0004thABC, Armaggeddon Grand Slam, Singapore: $5,0004thEmpire, Techlabs Cup, Moscow: $5,0004thfnatic, The Defense, Online: $5,000The Russian team Virtus.Pro has not only achieved second place in the Q1-ranking by winning The Defense, the gap between them and their pursuers has been widened by the record of eight total instances of finishing a tournament or league within the prize money positions. The most diligent prize money collectors are all western Dota 2 teams: After Virtus.Pro come TeamLiquid and NoTidehunter with six prize money finishes and fnatic as well as Na'Vi with five of them. Only then comes Neolution Orange with a number of 4 sources for their $2,800 prize money gain.Overall, 42 teams appear in the prize money rankings, from the first place $32,000 down to $100. On average, these teams earned $3026 within a quarter of a year per team. Only ten of these teams have finished the quarter above the average.The upcoming second quarter of the year is expected to beat the first quarter concerning prize money. In April alone there will be two European offline finals in Kiev for the StarLadder StarSeries ($15,000 for four teams) and in Katowice for the EMS One ($35,000 for eight teams). During the other two weekends in April, the online tournaments D2L and TPL will find their end, both handing out prize money of $10,000 each. All four of these tournaments had their preliminary, non-prize money rounds in the first quarter of the year, but were not counted towards the Q1-ranking.