In 24 hours, The International 8’s prize pool is 116.4 percent of last year’s one-day total

Dota 2 fans love their cosmetics, competition and credit cards, as shown by the crowd-funded prize pool for Valve’s annual tournament The International, which saw a massive $24,787,916 purse last year. The Battle Pass ensures that all three of these come together in a way that will make everyone happy, and it’s already made history in its first day.

In the first 24 hours of the TI8 Battle Pass, fans brought the prize pool up to $5,669,282 USD, according to the Dota 2 Prize Pool Tracker, made by esports manager and community contributor Matthew “Cyborgmatt,” Bailey. In numbers, it’s a comfortable 116.36 percent of last year’s total of $4,872,066 from the same period (or $797,216 and 16.36 percent above it).

For those wondering about the math, players didn’t actually spend over $5.6 million prize pool — actually, the real number may surprise newcomers.

Valve starts the prize pool with a $1.6 base prize. This means that the real amount added to the prize pool at that point was about $4,069,282. However, how the crowdfunding works is that, for each purchase, 25 percent of the money goes towards the prize pool. In other words, players are spending four times their listed contributions, for an actual total of $16,277,128 spent by players in 24 hours this year.

So if we churn those numbers instead, fans have actually spent a whopping 24.4 percent more than last year so far, when they spent $13,088,264 (contributing $3,272,066).

Each year, The International’s fans have a record of outpacing their prior contributions, despite a waning average player count. (This April’s count is 430,340, versus last year’s 540,278 and 2016’s 656,944.) Constant additions to the Battle Pass throughout the end of the competitive season, including cosmetics and more, ensure that players keep coming back for more.

There’s very little doubt that the prize pool’s top numbers will be broken again, but we have yet to see what’s in store for the Battle Pass. Still, we’re 22.9 percent of the way there!