With the conclusion of the regional qualifiers for The International 2017 as well as the release of the Tidehunter and Kunkka Announcer Pack, the International 2017's prize pool is now officially over $20Million.
We are halfway through the crowdfunding time of the Battle Pass of esports' largest annual event - The International - and the prize pool has already crossed the $20 Million mark and is less than a million dollars behind the prize pool of last year's TI6, which was the biggest electronic sports event to date. With fifty eight days having gone by since the release of the Battle Pass and about fifty seven days still left to fund the prize pool of TI7, the odds are that we're witnessing history first-hand.
While electronic sports may still be considered a waste of time by the majority of parents and the public, and professional gamers are frowned upon and struggle like anything to get visas trying to prove that they too are, in fact, athletes and no less talented than any other sportsmen. Many professionals in the industry joke about how they have quite a hard time explaining their relatives what they mean when they say that they make a living by playing "video games", and how their eyes are open wide in astonishment when they are told of the numbers involved in the sport. This year has shown the intense passion and dedication of Dota fans all over the world and has seemed to prove everyone of how rapidly proliferating the esports industry is and how Dota 2 is in fact not a "daed game" at all.
In other news, Valve recently stirred up some drama (especially on Reddit) by decreasing the amount of time left until the expiration of the Battle Pass, and people were not pleased at all. Many threatened to file a complaint under the commissions of their relative countries accusing Valve of breaking a variety of advertising laws. However, ChrisC from Valve was quick to make people drop their pitchforks when he cleared it up that it was actually a mistake on their part and soon fixed it, extending the time you can spend with your precious hats to the 10th of September.
With the Immortal Treasure 3 still to come and a good half of the crowdfunding time still to elapse, we can only speculate how large this year's International is going to be. But with the neck-to-neck regional qualifiers having concluded less than a week ago and the final eighteen teams for the International, the hype for what will most assuredly be the largest event in esports, continues to grow.
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