Esports players have seen some outrageous payouts over the last 20 years. While the overall size of a prize pool doesn’t determine the prestige of an event, it’s quite clearly one of the major factors players use to determine whether they’ll show up.<\/p>
The first esports prize was given away in 1997 when Dennis “Thresh” Fong won Quake <\/em>developer John Carmac’s red Ferrari 328. In 2006, Johan “Toxjq” Quick won a Rolex from the WSVG Quake 4 <\/em>championship. Those were certainly remarkable in their time, but today’s prize pools are large enough that players can often retire upon winning them.<\/p>
A huge part of this boom in prize money is due to the popularity of crowdfunding. Developers have begun to offer unique in-game items to their vast player bases to increase the size of the overall prize pool.<\/p>
Valve, the developer of Dota 2 <\/em>and CS:GO<\/em>, is the most successful company to employ the model at present. Its marquee Dota 2 <\/em>event, The International, has experienced tremendous growth throughout the past decade of competition.<\/p>
