Valve refunds The International tickets because of COVID-19, the DOTA 2 tournament with a total prize pool of more than 40 million USD will take place without an audience

Valve officially ended its efforts to bring audiences to Romania to watch The International tournament, the prestigious DOTA 2 tournament with a prize money of up to 40,018,195 USD. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Arena Național stadium located in the Romanian capital Bucharest will be without spectators. Valve has officially refunded tickets for all those who have booked in advance.

The photo shows just how epic the scene The International can be.

Valve confirmed that the tournament will still take place, which will start from October 7 and last until the 17th. The International, also known as TI, is an annual tournament with the biggest prize pool in the MOBA game segment. in particular and e-sports in general. In April of this year, Valve had to delay the tournament due to the complicated developments of the COVID-19 epidemic; At this time, Valve has no official confirmation on the date of the major esports event.

By June of this year, planning to host TI in Sweden was in jeopardy, as the country did not recognize the million-dollar tournament as a ” top sporting event “, making it difficult for players and managing teams. fly to Sweden to participate in the tournament.

Gabe Newell, co-founder and current president of Valve, is the opening keynote speaker at every TI event.

In July, Valve announced that they would be holding TI in Bucharest, Romania, and they just started selling tickets 12 days ago. However, buyers will get 100% refund of tickets when the host country of TI is fighting a new COVID-19 outbreak. Just last week, one of the teams participating in the tournament posted a disturbing announcement: several team members, including 3 players, tested positive for COVID-19.

TI will still take place on time, with the first match taking place at 2pm on October 7. The absence of the audience will make the players lose some of the vitality from the cheers and cheers, but at least they still have a multi-million dollar prize as a motivation to compete.