Dota 2 Prize Money in 2012 Exceeded 2 Million

The Dota 2 teams have gained more than $2,000,000 prize money in the year 2012. Though The International 2 of course was the dominating tournament, $470,000 came from non-Valve tournaments.

Prize Money by Team (incl. TI2) - Top 10

Team USD-eq.

iG $1,026,400

Na'Vi $323,840

LGD $197,300

DK $99,100

Orange $41,410

Zenith $37,910

EHOME $35,660

mTw $28,238

Empire $28,106

fnatic $26,030

Total $2,069,324

Complete, unformatted list: Team USD-eq.

iG 1026400

NaVi 323840

LGD 197300

DK 99100

Orange 41410

Zenith 37910

EHOME 35660

mTw 28238

Empire 28106

fnatic 26030

TongFu 25000

EG 19790

mouz 19670

NoTidehunter 19528

CLG 15640

coL 12420

Potm Bottom 10660

dignitas 10400

MUFC 10160

Moscow 5 7650

Darer 7168

Virtus.Pro 5428

Quantic 5366

WhA 5016

Shiba 5000

DevilMice 4000

NEXT.kz 3716

aL 3000

paiN 3000

Copenhagen Wolves 2640

Kaipi 2608

GD B-Team 2500

Pulse 2000

4FC 2000

Wzriv Paketi 2000

dd 1980

Infused 1650

LGD.int 1500

N9 1500

GamersLeague 1320

Zero 1320

My Intent 1250

It's Gosu 1160

zNation 1056

Keita 1010

aQuarium 1000

MYM 1000

iCCup 750

iLuminate 750

ex-GoSu 660

Rojak 660

TTB 660

99% 660

SM 660

Nex Impetus 528

SQL 500

SGC 500

Josh Tabak 500

Experience 264

DTS 250

fnaticNA 132

Prize Money by Team (excl. TI2) - Top 10

Team USD-eq.

Na'Vi $73,840

LGD $47,300

mTw $28,238

Empire $28,106

iG $26,400

fnatic $26,030

EG $19,790

mouz $19,670

NoTidehunter $19,528

DK $19,100

Total $469,324

Prize Money by Month

Month USD-eq.

January $0

February $2,640

March $28,000

April $16,660

May $7,044

June $37,744

July $53,784

August $45,496

September $1,608,336

October $23,156

November $124,176

December $122,288

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

Invictus Gaming with its five players Zhou, Ferrari, YYF, ChuaN and Faith has gained the most prize money of all Dota 2 in year 2012. The International with its million Dollar prize of course gave the that title to the Chinese team. They lead the table of summed up and to USD converted prize money from Dota 2 tournaments in 2012. Apart from The International, iG also had success in G-1 League and the World Cyber Games, summing up to $1,026,400 of total prize money.iG is followed by the TI2 runner-ups Na'Vi and LGD, with $323,840 and $197,300 total prize money in the last year. Best team in this ranking without any winnings from Seattle is mTw, shortly followed by Empire and fnatic. The ranking is conducted by 174 final placements in tournament and leagues by teams in 2012 which were awarded with prize money. Not the composition of a roster was decisive, but the tag the team played under. Single showmatches were not included.Without The International tournament, the field is much more heterogeneous, and got more weight on the western scene. Team EG, mousesports and NoTidehunter all almost scratched the value of $20,000 prize money outside of Seattle. Best Asian team outside of TI2 was LGD.cn with huge success at G-1 League and The Asia in the last quarter of 2012.The prize money list gives an overview about the minimum of prize money earned by the teams in the whole year. With the large amount of tournaments throughout the year, the Valve-hosted and sponsored tournament The International accounted for 77% of the total prize money. This means Valve awarded 3.4 times as much money as the other tournaments combined, down from a ratio of around 25 in year 2011. Na'Vi alone got every sixth Dollar of the non-TI2 prize money, iG about half of the total prize money.When divided by months, the strong growth of Dota 2 throughout the year is clearly visible. Tournaments are considered only by their ending date, as that is the date when the winners are determined. While the first quarter of the year barely breached the $30,000, this was distributed within a week on average in both November and December.If the level of the fourth quarter can be hold for the whole year 2013, third-party prize money would be doubled again compared to 2012 and breach the million Dollar barrier. Overall the November with G-1 League in China and DreamHack Winter in Europe set the record for non-TI prize money in 2012.2013 could also bring even more growth as tournaments like GEST and SMM still can make the switch over from DotA to Dota 2 with their regular tournaments.If these numbers from Dota 2 in 2012 are compared to other eSport games, the Top 200 players of Starcraft 2 have earned prize money worth $3,350,000 in 2012 according to SC2earnings.com , League of Legends also had a massive $2,000,000 Riot-sponsored Season 2 final in Los Angeles this year, but you would need the all-time winnings of the three most successful quartets in CS 1.6 combined to surpass the winnings of iG in this year according to Thorin's take