Gorgc commented on the prize pools at The International Dota 2 tournaments

Right now, players are taking home salaries of $20,000 or more every month. That didn’t used to be the case. The problem with TI being such a massive tournament was that nothing else mattered for the rest of the year. Valve realized this. As a result, it’s just terrible for the rest of the year. What’s the point of having a $20 million prize pool and forcing players to end their careers right away? How does that benefit the scene? What’s the point of being able to win TI and then never play Dota 2 again? Of course, they want people to play for ten years so they can have a full-fledged professional career, not end it right after a single victory. That completely kills the professional scene. A prize pool that’s too large is bad for the scene. <...>

The strongest argument you can make is this: no other sport is set up that way, right? No other esports either. That’s a terrible, brainless point of view. Have you seen $15 million prize pools in Counter-Strike 2? No. People still follow the Majors there anyway. What the hell? <...>

But I don’t get why people are so fixated on the size of the prize pool. Do you think you can convince some little Timmy to play Dota 2 just because the prize pool gets bigger? Nope, man. He’ll still play League of Legends or Counter-Strike 2 because that’s what his friends play. At the same time, Counter-Strike 2 Majors are still hugely popular. They draw ten times as many viewers as Dota 2. I don’t think that throwing a few million dollars into Yatoro’s pocket will help in any way. It won’t help. I’m not saying the prize pool can’t be a little higher, but bringing it back down to $20 or $40 million—I don’t know. That’s complete nonsense.