Although Dota 2 remains a massive draw for esports, with a prize pool in 2019 of over $34 million, payouts to winning teams are still slow to process. In some cases, though, the payouts simply never come - even years after an event.

Exploitation of esports participants is nothing new, since many of the participants are often young and lack real-world experience. Luckily, one individual has decided to create an online form, viewable by all, to track all delinquent payments in an effort to raise awareness and hopefully have some of these individuals finally receive what is owed.

Ben “Noxville” Steenhuisen tweeted on September 7 his intention to start the document and has since added numerous participants. According to Noxville, “The document is merely a tracker of public financial claims by individual(s) against an organization/events. Only claims over US $250 will be shown, and only claims relaed to Dota 2 (this could include a new org joining the Dota 2 scene with existing claims from other titles)…Any counter-claims by alleged debtors will be displayed alongside the original claims. Both parties are able to provide whatever evidence they want to (publicly) and it’ll be listed there.”

Noxville is a South African Dota 2 statsman who works on in-game statistics, production statistics, and talent preparation for events that include The International 2015, The Frankfurt Major and the Manila Major. Currently he works as a software developer at an esports analytics company.

People may be surprised to read of so many delinquent accounts in the document as esports has seen nothing but continual growth over the years. Some consider the first competitive video game to have been Starcraft in 1998 which had a total of $7.8 million awarded in prize mostly across hundreds of esports tournaments. Compared to 2018, which awarded $155.9 million, the beginning seems almost minuscule in its prize money.

Via: odgersberndtson.com

With all that money, why are there so many prize pools being withheld years after an event? We cannot speak on the specifics of any of these cases, but there are a few general points that can add to the time it takes to make a payout. First, many of these events take place outside of a competitor’s country of origin. Proper care is needed to ensure taxes are properly paid, and to avoid being taxed twice.

In other cases, an organizer may be waiting to collect all the promised funds from sponsors before paying competitors, because if the total comes up short, some may be paid more than others.

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Still, it's not a promising sight when one sees that many of the tournaments listed as owing prize money are reputable and sanctioned by such large organizations as Valve. The Global Electronic Sports Championship (GESC) is one of the largest tournament organizers for Dota 2 in the world, and a quick tally of their owed funds comes in at over half a million dollars. Esports may be growing but there appears to be little consideration for the players who make up the heart of the competition.

Via: bestadvice.co.uk

So, what can players do about this? Unfortunately, there is little that can be done outside of doing one’s best to find reputable partners to work with and have contracts clearly stipulate how prize money is shared, and when it is paid out. Of course, many of these recommendations may have been followed, but the problem persist as we're talking about organizers of some of the most well-known organizations around engaging in this shoddy behavior.

For now, Noxville is leading the charge in naming and shaming the organizations who are not paying their players what is owed. Hopefully, that's enough to bring about some real change in the future.

Source: Liquidpedia.net

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