We all know 2011 was a record breaking year for eSports but how much money was actually paid out in prizes? Over 5 million USD from the top 3 best paying eSports of 2011.
#1 StarCraft 2 – $2,525,775
The best paying eSport of 2011 goes to StarCraft 2 with over 2.5 million USD in tournaments an average of $200,000 prizes per month. This is 1.7 million more in prizes than the 2010 total of $800,000.
In 2011 StarCraft 2 not only had the largest prize pool but 130 tournaments each with a $1,000 or more prize pool in 2011. The year before StarCraft 2 had only about 30 tournaments with $1,000 or more in prizes an increase of 100 tournaments.
What makes StarCraft so special is that Blizzard does not sponsor many of these events. StarCraft 2 has past the two million dollar threshold because of fans. With live streaming individual gamers, teams and small organizations have the chance to appear on the world stage. With such easy access to content fans are now able to support pro gamers like never before.
With the success of smaller organizations larger organizers are now getting in on the action. Across America you have the MLG, IPL, NASL and ESEA. In Europe you have the ESL, DreamHack and INSOMNIA . In Asia there is the GSL.
Now that every major online competitive title is being released with a 1,000,000 or more prize pool (Call of Duty XP, DotA 2 International and soon Battlefield 3 World Conquest) StarCraft 2 has more competition than ever.
StarCraft 2, it missed being the first tournament to have a $1,000,000 prize pool but with Blizzard and their near endless funds maybe it will be the first game to host a $10,000,0000 prize pool in 2012. Heading into 2012 and regardless of what happens next StarCraft 2 has made esports mainstream.
#2 DotA 2 – $1,698,500
The second best paying eSport of 2011 is DotA 2 with over 1,600,000 USD in prizes. DotA 2 also held the largest single prize tournament of 1.6 million - 'The International'.
The one tournament may account for the majority of 2011 prizes but this game is still in Beta. What is remarkable is the number of organizations starting up or adding DotA 2 tournaments. We are certain DotA 2 will compete with StarCraft 2 tournament for tournament and dollar for dollar once released. DotA 2 is a hit before launch, StarCraft 2 better watch out because this is the competition we mentioned.
#3 Call of Duty MW3 - $1,010,000
Played on the XBOX360 CoD MW3 has done the impossible. It has created an eSport franchise that can be both short lived and popular with pro gamers. Although we may be talking about Call of Duty MW4 in 2012 if it is released with million or more prize pool who cares! Yes, this is a money grab. Instead of releasing updates they have you buy a new game. The answer they thought of was to give some of the money back in the form of tournaments. This concept may not be popular with everyone but it has shown to be successful in 2011 bringing many top gamers to compete in the million dollar Call of Duty XP tournament.
As mentioned above we don't know how long this eSport will last until replaced by a new version or a competing title (Battlefield 3) and it has not shown many self start tournaments.
Thanks for reading the 2011 eSport year end review.
For those interested on how we calculated the year end totals they are individual tournaments manually researched by us - PGT. Each of these tournaments have their own page with the prize pool and other related information including the source. These tournament pages can be found on our site
www.progamingtours.net 
