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We all know 2011 was a record breaking year for eSports but how much money was actually paid out in prizes? Over 5 million USD from the top 3 best paying eSports of 2011.
#1 StarCraft 2 – $2,525,775
The best paying eSport of 2011 goes to StarCraft 2 with over 2.5 million USD in tournaments an average of $200,000 prizes per month. This is 1.7 million more in prizes than the 2010 total of $800,000.
In 2011 StarCraft 2 not only had the largest prize pool but 130 tournaments each with a $1,000 or more prize pool in 2011. The year before StarCraft 2 had only about 30 tournaments with $1,000 or more in prizes an increase of 100 tournaments.
What makes StarCraft so special is that Blizzard does not sponsor many of these events. StarCraft 2 has past the two million dollar threshold because of fans. With live streaming individual gamers, teams and small organizations have the chance to appear on the world stage. With such easy access to content fans are now able to support pro gamers like never before.
With the success of smaller organizations larger organizers are now getting in on the action. Across America you have the MLG, IPL, NASL and ESEA. In Europe you have the ESL, DreamHack and INSOMNIA . In Asia there is the GSL.
Now that every major online competitive title is being released with a 1,000,000 or more prize pool (Call of Duty XP, DotA 2 International and soon Battlefield 3 World Conquest) StarCraft 2 has more competition than ever.
StarCraft 2, it missed being the first tournament to have a $1,000,000 prize pool but with Blizzard and their near endless funds maybe it will be the first game to host a $10,000,0000 prize pool in 2012. Heading into 2012 and regardless of what happens next StarCraft 2 has made esports mainstream.
#2 DotA 2 – $1,698,500
The second best paying eSport of 2011 is DotA 2 with over 1,600,000 USD in prizes. DotA 2 also held the largest single prize tournament of 1.6 million - 'The International'.
The one tournament may account for the majority of 2011 prizes but this game is still in Beta. What is remarkable is the number of organizations starting up or adding DotA 2 tournaments. We are certain DotA 2 will compete with StarCraft 2 tournament for tournament and dollar for dollar once released. DotA 2 is a hit before launch, StarCraft 2 better watch out because this is the competition we mentioned.
#3 Call of Duty MW3 - $1,010,000
Played on the XBOX360 CoD MW3 has done the impossible. It has created an eSport franchise that can be both short lived and popular with pro gamers. Although we may be talking about Call of Duty MW4 in 2012 if it is released with million or more prize pool who cares! Yes, this is a money grab. Instead of releasing updates they have you buy a new game. The answer they thought of was to give some of the money back in the form of tournaments. This concept may not be popular with everyone but it has shown to be successful in 2011 bringing many top gamers to compete in the million dollar Call of Duty XP tournament.
As mentioned above we don't know how long this eSport will last until replaced by a new version or a competing title (Battlefield 3) and it has not shown many self start tournaments.
Thanks for reading the 2011 eSport year end review.
For those interested on how we calculated the year end totals they are individual tournaments manually researched by us - PGT. Each of these tournaments have their own page with the prize pool and other related information including the source. These tournament pages can be found on our site www.progamingtours.net
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good quick writeup, thank you for that :D
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excellent information. I wonder how much will made this year?
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I'm surprised that LoL isn't either 2nd or third. I don't follow their scene at all but I assume it is really popular, and thus has large prize pools too.
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Canada1637 Posts
Wow, interesting read.
I think it says a lot about the "health" of the SC2 scene that this isn't dominated by like... one major million dollar + win, however DotA2 is just in beta to begin with.
2012 gonna be a helluva year  .
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LoL or something has a 5 millions tourney am I right?
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Where is League of Legends and Counter-Strike ?
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United States5714 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:09 tuho12345 wrote:
LoL or something has a 5 millions tourney am I right?
Yes, hasn't been paid out yet in 2011 though, prob be handed out to the winner this year.
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MW3 was only out for a couple of months. Same with DotA 2
impressive numbers from all the games regardless
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Basically Dota 2 and MW3 are in there only because of 1 promotion tournament with a huge prize pool slammed ontop.
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i thought bw and lol would be on the list. anyone know the numbers for these games?
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League of Legends hasn't been popular since the beginning of 2011. They've really been picking up speed about midway through, and 2012 will be the telling year for them.
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On January 06 2012 08:08 Arterial wrote:
I'm surprised that LoL isn't either 2nd or third. I don't follow their scene at all but I assume it is really popular, and thus has large prize pools too.
League of Legends is incredibly popular but was held back in 2011 because there was no observer mode severely limiting broadcasting abilities of organizers. What LoL used in 2011 was a Spectator Client that caused delays at events including MLG:
http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/news/league-of-legends-stream-offline-because-of-spectator-client-problems
Now with their new observer mode being released and Riot's $5,000,000 across season 2 to promote their game as an eSport LoL may very well beat StarCraft 2 in 2012 for best paying eSport.
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On January 06 2012 08:15 Trevor.PGT wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 08:08 Arterial wrote:
I'm surprised that LoL isn't either 2nd or third. I don't follow their scene at all but I assume it is really popular, and thus has large prize pools too. League of Legends is incredibly popular but was held back in 2011 because there was no observer mode severely limiting broadcasting abilities of organizers. What LoL used in 2011 was a Spectator Client that caused delays at events including MLG: http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/news/league-of-legends-stream-offline-because-of-spectator-client-problemsNow with their new observer mode being released and Riot's $5,000,000 across season 2 to promote their game as an eSport LoL may very well beat StarCraft 2 in 2012 for best paying eSport.
yeah im pretty confident Sc2 will get dwarfed. 5 million is just a lot of money lol
On January 06 2012 08:12 Diglett wrote:
i thought bw and lol would be on the list. anyone know the numbers for these games?
I really love BW but to tell you the truth in 2011, The only prize money was a couple thousands from the ISL, a few hundred bucks here and there and in Korea, ~32k ish prize money for a few OSLs (I think only 2 this year and the fall of MSL certainly doesnt help) and Proleague (I think Proleague is 100K won for a team. idk). Not too great :l
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1,000,000 out of the 1.6 of dota was from that 1 mil tournament, so not much from others when you think about it. Although they did start much later than starcraft, so i dont know....
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I think the big thing to not is that there is more sponsorship money in Starcraft 2 it seems. So many people backing SC2 and that is much bigger then prize money in itself in my oppinion.
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LoL's season 2 is 5 million in prizes.. not actual money.
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lol dota2 had one tournament basically. Pretty joke esport at the moment.
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On January 06 2012 08:12 solidbebe wrote:
Basically Dota 2 and MW3 are in there only because of 1 promotion tournament with a huge prize pool slammed ontop.
This is true for MW3 more than DotA 2.
DotA 2 is showing huge support from organizers similar to StarCraft 2. Although it is only $98,500 it is made up of many well known eSport organizers and many new organizers such as JoinDotA.
DotA 2 while still in Beta is showing that, once released, will compete tournament for tournament with StarCraft 2.
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lol one tournament making up almost everything for dota2 x3.Guess dota2 benefits hugely from LoL that brought so many mmpog people to these sort of games, otherwise only dota players would play and watch it x3. But i am not convinced that dota2 can really make it big without having its hand hold every year by the creator. Still interesting bit of information.
The starcraft2 had a interesting start though, making bw more popular again when it was announced and using that as a starting point.
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EPT
