KUALA LUMPUR: While all eyes are on the Malaysian contingent competing in the 2017 Sea Games in Kuala Lumpur, one Malaysian gamer created history by earning a podium finish at the prestigious The International Dota 2 tournament last weekend.
Local e-sports fans rejoiced after professional Dota 2 player Tue Soon Chuan (Ah Fu) and his team, LGD.Forever Young, placed third at the event, earning themselves more than US$2.6 million (RM11.2 million).
Dubbed as the most lucrative tournament in e-sports history, The International is an annual event showcasing the best Dota 2 teams around the world battling it out for top honours and a cut of its huge prize money.
The prize pool for this year’s premier Dota 2 tournament is more than US$24 million, nearly US$3 million more than 2016’s pool.
Tue’s team, which is based in China, lost in the lower bracket final to eventual champions Team Liquid from Europe, who walked home with the lion’s share of US$10.9 million (RM46.8 million).
Last year, team Fnatic from Malaysia won US$1.4 million (RM5.6 million) in the wildly popular competitive game after clinching fourth place.
The last time an all-Malaysian team performed well in the tournament was in 2013 when Orange Esports bagged third place, albeit with a lower cash prize of RM1.15 million.
For the uninitiated, Dota 2 is a multiplayer online video game in which two teams of five players compete to collectively destroy a large structure defended by the opposing team, known as the "Ancient", while defending their own.
The matches were played in front of a sold-out crowd at the KeyArena stadium in Seattle and were "streamed" live to millions of viewers around the world.
Million dollar winnings have become the norm in e-sports, and to put things in perspective, Dota 2’s prize purse has eclipsed that of some of the world’s most established traditional sports.
In comparison, the Badminton Super Series Masters Finals offers a total prize pool of RM2 million, while the total pot of prize money handed out at Le Tour de France this year amounted to RM10.1 million.