Replying to /r/DotA2 post "What do you think about The Bootleg Majors?"
Written by: Ben "Noxville" Steenhuisen
Publication: Reddit
Date published: July 7, 2023 at 8:37:57 AM, last edited July 8, 2023 12:16:31 AM (GMT+8)
I replied with this to Maly, but I think it's important enough to repeat here.
The original Majors (Frankfurt, Shanghai, Manila) were basically paid for by Valve. Various numbers were mentioned behind the scenes, but I think the most reliable value was $6M - $3M for the prizepool (100%) and $2.5-3M for putting on the event. (I'm not sure if Shanghai ended up costing more because of changing the production, I didn't work at Shanghai only the other two). I don't think the TOs just put the $3M into their pocket, it was more like that was their budget and they needed to get approval to make adjustments. There were also some common stuff which Valve outsourced: for example MCW Events managed the travel and logistics (venue scouting, hotel bookings, food, planning, etc) for the all the majors (and TI).
Then the Boston / Kyiv cycle started, PGL took over, and the non-prizepool budget I heard was about halved (~$1.5Mish). For Kiev they didn't even have onsite english panel (they made them go to Romania). They cut a lot of the general production.
Now we're in "Bootleg Major cycle" where Valve pays $250k for the prize pool and everything else the TOs pay for. This represents a huge financial risk, and a lot of TOs are not confident they can recoup costs - but some try anyway. Even the Lima major had very significant financial implications for the hosts. This isn't a totally new phenomenon: it's hard to make money on Dota 2 events. Even in the 2017-2018 heyday season with 22 events when the chips were up:
- GESC went bankrupt after 2 events
- CD4.0 lost significant money, moonduck's basically dead?
- BTS bankrupt in 2023.
- MarsTV (behind MDL) basically died - staff left (including Mali), I think there were legal issues with the owners.
- 3 Starladder events - post-COVID they've not done any serious Dota/CSGO, and more recently totally understandably so (given the Russian invasion of Ukraine)
- EPICENTER did an event, and did events since - although currently can't.
- DotaPIT have hosted a few online events since (have flown some international teams to play in a region though)
- ESL/DH did 6 events - now merged into single company
- PGL had 2 of their own events - they're still around
- Perfect World had one of their own events (? PWM) - they're still around but to call Perfect World "just a TO" given their position as Dota 2's publisher for China seems weird.
- PGL + Perfect World worked together on 2 events
So yeah ... many companies dead; a few could come back - and then ESL/PGL the only ones still going.
What's the result of this budget reduction?
- much more compressed events (similar # days but double the # games)
- on average, much worse productions
- less money for innovation (except for TI really) and 'cool stuff'
The original Majors (Frankfurt, Shanghai, Manila) were basically paid for by Valve. Various numbers were mentioned behind the scenes, but I think the most reliable value was $6M - $3M for the prizepool (100%) and $2.5-3M for putting on the event. (I'm not sure if Shanghai ended up costing more because of changing the production, I didn't work at Shanghai only the other two). I don't think the TOs just put the $3M into their pocket, it was more like that was their budget and they needed to get approval to make adjustments. There were also some common stuff which Valve outsourced: for example MCW Events managed the travel and logistics (venue scouting, hotel bookings, food, planning, etc) for the all the majors (and TI).
Then the Boston / Kyiv cycle started, PGL took over, and the non-prizepool budget I heard was about halved (~$1.5Mish). For Kiev they didn't even have onsite english panel (they made them go to Romania). They cut a lot of the general production.
Now we're in "Bootleg Major cycle" where Valve pays $250k for the prize pool and everything else the TOs pay for. This represents a huge financial risk, and a lot of TOs are not confident they can recoup costs - but some try anyway. Even the Lima major had very significant financial implications for the hosts. This isn't a totally new phenomenon: it's hard to make money on Dota 2 events. Even in the 2017-2018 heyday season with 22 events when the chips were up:
- GESC went bankrupt after 2 events
- CD4.0 lost significant money, moonduck's basically dead?
- BTS bankrupt in 2023.
- MarsTV (behind MDL) basically died - staff left (including Mali), I think there were legal issues with the owners.
- 3 Starladder events - post-COVID they've not done any serious Dota/CSGO, and more recently totally understandably so (given the Russian invasion of Ukraine)
- EPICENTER did an event, and did events since - although currently can't.
- DotaPIT have hosted a few online events since (have flown some international teams to play in a region though)
- ESL/DH did 6 events - now merged into single company
- PGL had 2 of their own events - they're still around
- Perfect World had one of their own events (? PWM) - they're still around but to call Perfect World "just a TO" given their position as Dota 2's publisher for China seems weird.
- PGL + Perfect World worked together on 2 events
So yeah ... many companies dead; a few could come back - and then ESL/PGL the only ones still going.
What's the result of this budget reduction?
- much more compressed events (similar # days but double the # games)
- on average, much worse productions
- less money for innovation (except for TI really) and 'cool stuff'