2. DOTA 2
- Lifetime Prize Pools: $177,365,705.19 (1085 Tournaments)
- Highest Earning Player: KuroKy (Kuro Takhasomi) $4,164,203.61
DOTA 2 has long been the king of esport prize pools; crowd-funding for The International tournaments has pushed numbers upward of $24 million. These publisher-hosted events comprise a huge portion of the total lifetime prize pools, but even third-party competitions such as the ones run by the ESL offer prizes in the millions.
It’s important to remember, however, that Valve doesn’t pay player salaries in the same way that Blizzard and Riot Games do, which is why the prize pools are so much higher. The viewership of DOTA 2 tournaments tends to skew heavily to Chinese audiences, also, with 13 million of the 15 million viewers of the 2018 International final from China.
The disproportionately large volume of the audience and interest between east and west makes DOTA 2 a less desirable esport to be involved with. Particularly so, given that audience numbers don’t seem to be growing all that much year-on-year. MOBA games, in general, aren’t seeing the same growth as FPS, battle royale, and sports games on a global scale.
As a result of its inaccessibility, limited audience demographic, and potentially dubious longterm viability, DOTA 2 doesn’t quite sit at the top of our list.
