Valve, the developer of the MOBA game Dota 2, has announced that no in-game advertising will broadcast at The International in 2024. This will allow players and spectators to stay focused on the tournament and fully immerse themselves in its events.

The International 2024

The largest and most important esports event of the year will take place at the Royal Arena in Copenhagen, Denmark. The competition will involve 16 teams. This year, the developer of Dota 2 decided to ban advertising through in-game banners. As well as through the main logos and tags in the names of players in the upcoming tournament. In-game banners were originally used to showcase team or player affiliations. However, over the years, they have been increasingly used for advertising.

The move is considered potentially beneficial for PGL, the event’s producers. It closes a loophole that allowed brands to place advertisements that were not related to the main game stream.

The International 2024 will divided into two stages: The Road to The International and The Road International. Qualification, group stage and playoffs are part of The Road to The International. At this stage, the top 8 teams will selected to compete in The Road International.

This tournament is the first since 2017 to include direct invitations and the first since 2019 to have open qualifiers. Participants will consist of six invited teams and ten teams from regional qualifiers, with varying numbers of teams from different regions.

The group stage will take place from 4 to 5 September 2024, followed by the decisive seeding matches on 6-7 September. The main part, including the playoffs and the final, will take place from 8 to 10 September and from 13 to 15 September, respectively. The main event will held in a double-elimination format with the Grand Final based on the Best-of-5 principle and Best-of-3 for the other series. The base prize pool of the tournament is $1,600,000, which will supplemented by another 25% of all Compendium sales.