The E-Sports tournament “The International” 2024 starts on September 4, with T1 13, at DOTA 2 (Steam). 16 teams will compete against each other in Copenhagen. The prize pool is already set to be low. Now Valve drops a bombshell: It bans the advertising of the teams’ sponsors in the game. This seems specifically directed against casinos but affects all advertising partners.
This is the decision: Valve says in a blog post on August 28 (via dota):
- A series of features have been integrated into DOTA to celebrate players and teams.
- Unfortunately, over time these features have been used not to celebrate the teams but to place advertisements.
- In 2024, all “distracting elements” will be removed, allowing everyone to fully focus on the team. This specifically concerns the tournament The International. It states literally: “The International no longer allows advertising and sponsorship in games. This includes, among other things, team banners, team logos in the bases, and abbreviations in player names.”
The advertising ban is likely due to casino regulations in Denmark
Why is this being done? The site DotEsports explains what is behind this action. The tournament takes place in Denmark, where strict rules against gambling advertising apply. Since the gambling industry sponsors some teams in DOTA 2, the tournament would face problems if advertising were to proceed as usual during The International.
By taking action against the gambling industry, it now also takes action against all other sponsors and hits the teams’ advertising partners hard.
Valve’s decision to indirectly take action against gambling is remarkable considering that their huge business with skins in Counter-Strike is practically also “legal” gambling.
How is this being discussed? Although the ban itself is welcomed (via reddit), it is noted that times are getting tougher for e-sports players and teams:
- In 2024, the prize pool of the tournament is already extremely low.
- Investment in e-sports is decreasing.
- Now the sponsors also receive the horrendous news that they cannot promote their brands in the most important tournament of the year at DOTA 2.
For professionals, tough times could be coming.
Why is the prize pool so low? For years, “The International” was considered the most lucrative e-sports tournament in the world, as the prize pool was generated from the sales of a Battle Pass.
Valve invested a lot of development time each year into creating this Battle Pass with great cosmetic skins, which led to the Battle Pass selling like hotcakes and generating a lot of money for the tournament. However, it was decided in June 2023 to spend less time on the Battle Pass and instead focus more on improving the game: Steam: DOTA 2 forgoes the Battle Pass – Now prefers to improve the game
