The annual Dota 2 tournament, The International TI2023 (TI12), is just around the corner.
On the 12th of next week, 20 teams from all regions around the world will face off in Seattle, USA, to compete for a place in the TI main event.
Since TI3 (2013), V invented the "Interactive Guide", commonly known as the small book, players buy small books, the corresponding income 25% into the bonus pool, since then TI bonuses have increased year by year, reaching an eye-popping step.
One of the most exaggerated is TI10 (2021), which is the cumulative bonus of 2020 and 2021, reaching a "terrifying" $40 million, and the champion takes 45.5% of the total prize, that is, more than $18 million (the TI10 champion is Sprite Team). Even the LGD team, which won the runner-up that year, had a prize of more than $5 million (13%).
It can be said that the high prize money of the Dota 2 game has become a "feature", although the players of Dota 2 are not as good as LOL, but the purchasing power of players is quite OK, don't look at many people do not play several games a year, but every year to TI, the interactive guide will still spend money to buy.
However, the situation has changed a lot this year, V Club after announcing the launch of the TI2023 interactive guide, players were excited at first, but after the update, they found that they were "deceived", V Club canceled accessories this year, there is no supreme treasure, no immortality, all that is given to players is some stickers, capsules, team support and other content, which makes players angry.
I don't know what considerations are the V Society for, or is it simply "lazy"? Anyway, this year's "small book" is not satisfactory, although there are still many people who buy it (the author also bought it), but judging from the growth of this year's bonus, many players express their dissatisfaction with practical actions.
Up to now, the total prize money of TI12 is 2844079 US dollars, of which 1.6 million is the basic bonus provided by V Company, which means that the player contribution is only 1244079 US dollars, which is not even more than the bonus of TI3 (the total bonus of TI3 is 2874380).
The Riyadh Masters held in July this year, the total prize money is as high as 15 million US dollars (held in Saudi Arabia), before everyone joked that the Riyadh Masters is "small TI", but from the perspective of this year's TI prize money, I am afraid that this statement has to be reversed, TI is "Little Riyadh".
Dota 2 is a very interesting dota-like game, but since the use of the DPC system in 2017, the game of Dota 2 has gradually become "boring", and the loss of players is serious, especially in the Chinese division, which can also be reflected in the decline in the strength of the Chinese division.
In this case, it's time for a change. V has also previously announced that it will make changes to professional competition after TI12, but how it will change has not yet been said.
In any case, change is a good thing. But not everything has to change, such as small books, at least so far the interactive guide, is not interesting, the tasks in it also lack "fun", even special activities, I hope V Club can return to the "right way" in subsequent updates and add more fun content.