The $5,500,000 prize pool stretch goal has been reached in just a little over one week. This seems to have a positive impact on players as the game also broke its record of concurrent users.
The community has now brought the prize pool of The International up to $5,500,000. That is an increase of almost four million dollars from the base amount of $1,600,000. The mark is not far from surpassing the pot of the first three The Internationals combined.
This mark is also the 12th stretch goal. The reward for reaching this are new map environmental effects. The game's ancestor, Warcraft III mod-map DotA, can be remembered for having changeable weathers from its engine. Among the weathers that can be chosen before are rain, snow and wind.
The reward is of course not implemented yet. So far, only the first five of the currently twelve achieved stretch goals have delivered rewards.
The massive prize pool seems to be attracting both the older players back and the newer players in. A high of nearly 800,000 concurrent users was seen last week as the prize pool reached upwards of three million dollars. That record was shattered earlier today as a record-number of more than 845,000 were concurrently playing the game. Never did the game reach the mark of 800,000 concurrent users before. Other things that may have aided this influx are the TI4 qualifiers and that today is a weekend.
The final stretch goal is set when the prize pool reaches $6,000,000, and the reward if that is reached are base customization features for Compendium owners. With the phase of the prize pool increase, it is looking highly possible that that goal will be reached. It can be remembered that new goals were added last year as the community closed in on the then biggest stretch goal.
Head over to our wiki page for The International 2014!
