SirActionSlacks estimated the cost of hosting a Dota 2 tournament with a $1 million prize pool at $3–5 million.

SirActionSlacks: When something disappoints people, they start posting negative comments. And again, that comes from passion, from caring. But if you don’t understand that—and you’re just creating content and nobody says anything nice—only the dissatisfied people leave comments—you constantly think, “Everything sucks; the community hates us. I don’t want to do this anymore.” <...>

I’m a toxic piece of shit—you’ve known that since the beginning of the podcast. But even I sometimes leave positive comments, saying, “Great job.” This is very important for our entire scene and for tournament organizers. I think people have no idea how much it costs to run a tournament like this. They say, “Oh, a million-dollar tournament.” But to organize it, you have to spend at least three to five million, factoring in all the expenses. <...>

Just take a moment to write, “I like this.” It makes an incredible difference. A single comment like that can inspire someone to keep playing Dota for another five years—seriously. It sounds strange, but people don’t do it. And that’s understandable—that’s just how psychology works. But for our scene, it really means a lot.

Cap: I actually had a moment like that at this TI. I really loved the stage. The stages at TI are always amazing, so you’re absolutely right: it’s hard to stand out when everyone’s already used to the fact that it’s going to be great every time. But this year, the lights moving up and down added something special. I mentioned this in the elevator, and someone turned to me and said, “Thank you.” It seemed to me that my words meant a lot to that person. I wasn’t expecting that at all—I was just saying how cool everything was. And it turned out that this person was probably the one responsible for it. And I thought, “Damn, that’s great: I just happened to say it, and it made someone happy.”