Do not gaze too closely upon it, lest it snatch the very change from your wallet.
Resident IncGamers Dota 2 person Tim McDonald is not here, so I will do my best to do justice to this related story. Okay, here we go! Dota 2’s Compendium is a mystical magical virtual book that gives you lots of information about The International 4. Players, teams, matches, that kind of thing. I think.
Valve introduced it last year to drive up the prize fund for their Dota 2 International tournament (which this year is at Seattle’s KeyArena between 18-21 July.) Last year, the total prize pool was $2.8 million USD, aided by sales of The Compendium. Quite a lot of money, but not enough money for Valve’s taste.
This year, that prize pool is already approaching $4 million USD (around $3.9 million USD right now,) and rapidly chasing down the slightly controversial ‘stretch goals’ that Valve added to this year’s release. The top one of those is “base customisation,” sat at a very reachable-looking $6 million USD. Since there are two months or so until The International 4 and this year’s Compendium has whipped up nearly $4 million USD in about two days, the top goal is looking kind of safe.
According to Tim’s previous story, The Compendium also “levels up as you complete challenges (from watching games, to winning matches with 10 randomly-assigned heroes) and that levelling gives you stuff. Like, ooh, a courier. Or custom visuals for teleporting. Or new appearances for Bottle, Blink Dagger, and Dagon.”
How can it do that when it’s a book? It’s sorcery, that’s what it is. Very popular sorcery.
