5. Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds – $ 7 million
PUBG is one of the younger esports games, but has already secured a place in the top 5 of the highest prize money in 2018.
This is due, among other things, to the PUBG Global Invitational 2018. Both the first-person and third-person categories were worth one million US dollars each.
Overall, Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds had a little more than seven million US dollars in prize money at the end of the year – seven times as much as in 2017.
4. League of Legends – $ 14.5 million
A significant leap: League of Legends paid out more than twice as much prize money as PUBG in 2018, a total of 14.5 million US dollars. The MOBA’s prize pool has grown significantly over the past few years.
For comparison: in 2010 only 28,000 US dollars were raised, in 2011 it was 520,000 US dollars and in 2012 the game took the top spot among the esports titles with the highest prize money for the first time with around 4.3 million US dollars.
The League of Legends tournament with the highest value of all time is the World Cup from 2018. The prize money was an incredible 6,450,000 US dollars. The Chinese team Invictus won.
3. Fortnite – $ 20 million
2018 was the Fortnite year. Fortnite has set new standards not only with the prize money, but also with the Twitch viewers. In November 2018 Fortnite also had 200 million registered players, meanwhile the number has grown to 250 million.
And sales were not neglected either: in July 2018 alone, Epic earned one billion US dollars from microtransactions. And what do you do with so much money? You put it in tournaments!
Just about a year after its release, Fortnite moved into third place on the list with $ 20 million in prize money. And at the end of 2019, the battle royale shooter could even sit on the throne.
Because for the Fortnite World Cup, Epic has taken a total of 40 million US dollars in prize money, 10 million will flow into the qualifying rounds alone. So much money has never been seen in any other game. By way of comparison: the most highly endowed video game tournament of all time is currently The International 2018 with 25.5 million US dollars, the Dota 2 World Cup.
2. CS: GO – $ 22.6 million
Fortnite isn’t the most successful shooter on this list, that honor goes to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The game has fought its way up since 2012, consistently beating League of Legends since 2016, and held second place on the prize money list.
2018 was a record year for CS: GO with over $ 22.6 million in prize money. Surprising: the shooter’s tournaments with the highest endowment date back to 2016 and 2017. Both the 2016 and 2017 WESG had a prize pool of 1.5 million US dollars each – and are therefore only 34th among the highest endowed tournaments of all Times.
The fact that CS: GO is so high in this ranking list despite the comparatively moderate prize money for individual matches is due to the gigantic number of tournaments: while competitors such as Dota 2, Fortnite and League of Legends came to around 170 tournaments per year, found for CS: GO held almost 830.
1. Dota 2 – $ 41.4 million
At this point we would have liked to have talked about a close victory and put a good dose of drama on it, but Dota 2 leads the ranking with a more than clear lead. With a total volume of $ 41.4 million, the MOBA covers almost the entire prize pool of CS: GO and Fortnite.
Yes, Dota 2 has been the undefeated champion when it comes to prize money since 2014 and also tops the list of the highest-value tournaments. Ranks 1 to 5 are the World Championships The International from 2014 to 2018, which start at just under 11 million US dollars and culminate at 25.5 million US dollars.
To keep up to date with the latest news about the esports scene, check out sites like pley.gg that show for example the latest CS:GO news.
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