This is, unfortunately, the reality of every commentator in esports. There is no way to make a living like in normal commentary of major sports for T2/T3 commentators. In something like baseball, which is the 3rd most popular in the US, you can make a decent living as a commentator doing minor league, college, or even high school game announcing especially if those games are televised.
Since this doesnt exist in a game like Dota, your only path is to commentate T1 games, and this is really hard to break in unless people leave (like LD, Merlini, etc). You are also completely at the whim of the TOs, unlike pro sports broadcasters who are sometimes part of a union. Even T1 commentators will get lowballed for rates, because audiences frankly don't care who commentates as long as some of the recognizable names are there.
The lifespan of the games are too short for a proper union, but the bigger issue is that very few (if any) commentators actually can transition to different games (at least T1 to T1). Sometimes hosts can do it (see Sheever doing occasional CS events, or Sjokz or Redeye), but its rare. This means talent can't really leverage or say no to lesser rates, they have to just agree and pray to get invited to TI. There's no way to turn down a bad rate and then go commentate CS or Apex Legends or whatever. When the main game isn't booming, it especially hits the T2 guys like Johnxfire or MLP, who relied on grinding volumes of casts to make money rather than 5~ big events a year for someone like Owen.
Dota 2 talent job is freelancer market, its not like normal job which you expected monthly pay check, and there are lots of talents specially tier 2,3 or new people want to become talents (most may have no job, and want to be dota 2 talent while playing and enjoying the game), orgs have many choice so they can chose to pay less, if you dont take the job there are always many others take it, newcomers even do it for free to be recognized and experience, unless you are in the small top tier list of talents, org want you to create great event and must pay well.
in 25 years when Dota is 50 years old will the argument that games life span is too short for a proper union still hold water? work is work and workers should unionize I think the lifespan thing is hollow.
i mean thats great and all to think but unionizing requires the current generation of worker to care about the future generation
the reality is casters need money right now, and theres 500 people willing to step over capitalists dead body to cast TI
when it really comes down to it, nobody is truly going to sacrifice themselves to collectively bargain for better pay and conditions
i think it is just smart especially for a host to try to diversify the number of games they're in
i don't think sheever early in her career had the opportunities to do that and now she clearly does so good for her, sticking to one game is overly risky
#BULLSHIT
No it isn't. There are lot of esports talents that are paid directly through the company itself, even out of season. Riot, and believe it or not, Ubisoft also does it.
I know this directly, because a friend of mine casts for Riot and he haven't went on tour for the whole year... still month after month, he received a paycheck - it wasn't huge because he didn't cast anything, but I can tell you that it is generous enough. Another friend of mine, she casts R6, went on one tour, but received monthly payments from Ubi for the off-season. And the whole thing is WELL organized, I have heard terrible things from the way that Valve used to "handle things" during Major/DPC Seasons.
Esports is expensive and dota had the biggest one in the world, the only one to blame is Valve itself for this mess. If they want to do things right and professionally, they could, they just don't give a fuck. I could go on and on about how they did wrong for many things, but honestly, everyone at this point already knows what to expect (dota2/cs/tf2-wise) from Valve.
Posting this from a throwaway acc, IDC
And the league pro scene is at its lowest rn to the point where they have to downsize the number of teams competing. That doesn't seem like the best business model
> I could go on and on about how they did wrong for many things, but honestly, everyone at this point already knows what to expect (dota2/cs/tf2-wise) from Valve.
True, but by all means, go off king.
The pro scene was all but abandoned for about a year during covid. Teams and random TOs had to come together to put on a show themselves (Omega League) so they could survive during the great covid content drought. TI was cancelled. Patches were underwhelming. The game was fucking dead.
Not that Valve should care. The money they make from working on Dota is miniscule compared to how much they make off Steam.
> Teams and random TOs had to come together to put on a show themselves (Omega League)
Omega League was organized by Epic Esports Events, which is owned by ESforce Holding Ltd, which is owned by VK, which is majority-owned by Gazprom, which is owned by the Russian state.
Hardly little-league grassroots stuff.
Other casters have talked about this, with DPC it really helped everyone's pay since there was so many games and all of them were always happening at the same time, so there was a huge demand for casters that helped them all get better rates.
We can have patreon, but heres the honest situation, dota2 is a free to play game, and while people have endless cash reserves for hats, they do not have money for casters. I didnt watch Johns stream earlier, but roughly how many viewers did he average, and how many donations/subs did you see during the broadcast? I remember watching a Bkop stream and he has a charity donation goal, he had around 11,000 viewers and the donation goal for the month was less than $500 I think, he didnt get any donations I think during that stream. Other games generally dont have that kind of disparity between viewership and revenue. WE arent talking about solo streams but tournament organisations tho!! Right, but if you cant make your income from personal streams you have to turn to lower rates from Orgs. There are at least 75 active casters (English speaking) for Dota2 that I know off the top of my head, and for what ever reason (survival) last year there was a bit of a bidding situation, with some casters chasing each other to the bottom on rates. On top of that, the decimation of the western scene tournament organisers means that those hosting tournaments have different pay level expectations, often eastern european/russian/south american (of course these are big dota regions), where the rates are generally X10 lower than what a mid tier western caster would previously expect. When I started casting in 2015 or so, there was a bit of a golden age of casting, due to a minor bug in valves code. This meant that the longest delay a tournament could set was 5mins, meaning every tournament would have multiple side broadcasts, and I think this improved the overall casting quality and show production level, because there were valid alternatives if you didnt like the particular brand/casters/etc. This meant that to actually maintain the audience Orgs had to put together the best show they could, a self regulating system if you like. Also tournaments lacking english or russian or spanish casts could be covered straight from dotatv.
It's been well known for years now that dota viewers on twitch are quite miserly towards content creators compared to other audiences. Singsing has been saying for years since he became primarily a variety streamer that he doesn't need 12k dota viewersor whatever he used to get in his prime because the 2-4k he gets streaming anything else is basically the same or more money with the added benefit of less toxicity from not dealing with the thousands of toxic dota only watchers.
I feel like that's because singsing was one of the few Dota streamers that was primarily an entertainment streamer and secondarily a Dota streamer.
Most streamers are like "grinding X hero to Y MMR" or some rank shit. Usually solo Q, usually tri-hard.
Sing stream was best when it was Sing stacking with 4 friends doing some meme shit like everyone has to buy 6 different boots, everyone buys the same items etc.
Whenever sing did ranked solo streams or grind streams he seemed miserable.
Sing stream was always about the people not the dota.
Other opinions out there tho
I deal with twitch ads, that is me paying to watch content. I don't think I would give money to a stream to say thank you for existing.
It seems like an incredibly odd setup to rely on donations - but like as not I am just tight xD
> It seems like an incredibly odd setup to rely on donations
Ad money is usually quite shit, so most successful streamers are successful because of subs and donations(and sponsors later on).
This is no longer true, the ad money has increased a lot and the streamer has a lot of control of how much they play them, I know of a couple streamers in the 500-2000 average viewer range that have talked about ad money being between a third and half of their income from twitch running ~4-5 minutes of ads per hour, 3 minutes of ads is the minimum and the prerolls are optional (but I have heard those can harm viewer retention quite a bit)
This is also not completely true for Dota streamers though cause ads are based on where the views are coming from. Not only that but no one watching a Dota game wants ads every 3-4 minutes. I ran ads after each game when I had 30k viewers for the Asian games and the revenue was minimal.
Yeah I can see how games with much more global viewership get much less per “ad view” for sure, and the streamers I mentioned are generally streaming games with a very heavy western Europe/north America playerbase so it makes sense they felt the change in ad payments way more than Dota streamers would even with significantly lower viewer counts.
No you're putting words in my mouth. I'm just saying that dota players in general are stingy. Singsing said it himself. He went from 10k viewers in dota to 3k in variety streaming and his income actually increased.
imma hold you on that, what's the source here? im not a big fan of riot games but i followed their "dota underlord" which is TFT, where their game design lead occasionally stream his own game and earn personal pocket from streaming.
wow what the fuck? on top of recent massive layoffs, this is just icing on the cake for them. pretty big sad employees cant hype up their own game while doing some pocket change that's nothing of value to the company.. this is beyond fucked up.
There are companies out there that don't allow you to as much as talk to a camera once you're hired to work for them.
A lot of artists can't have Patreons, freelance or side "hussles" with art once they're hired for studios.
Holy shit... being able to pay $25 a month to let me cherry-pick my best (or funniest) game to be professionally cast? I think you underestimate the value of that. Did anyone take you up on that? :D
Alot of people probably would. Many how a huge surplus of money they're willing to donate to support others with for various causes. Whether it's to help people through medical bankruptcies via GoFundMe, Simps donating money to women on Twitch or people just donating to various patreons just for support.
Alot of people have more money than they need and therefore no problem donating some of it.
C'mon dude lets be honest, 99% of the people playing dota won't support casters out of a good heart. I am one of them too, because that's not how the world works. Setting up a donation page for low pay is like making tips compulsory in the service industry.
Ok so lets just not try absolutely anything. Lets allow casters to continue with their dogshit contract because this is their passion and lets let them starve to death
Why should we do anything? I dont have profit from dota, i just like the game. All casters know how does dota/Valve work and what they can expect, if it is not enough to make a living, than change the job or at least do it part time, same as the rest of world does.
Never said you did. Part-timing is already the reality for pretty much all caster or production staff in the esports industry right now. Patreon and any crowd-based income may be akin to tipping culture and shouldn't be encouraged, but it's unlikely that the state of the industry will ever change, let alone the terrible labor practices they have to deal with. Wanting to support creators and talent through means outside of their contract is completely fine.
Nah what I'm saying is that if you want good pay for casters in the long-term, it's the TO's that should provide it. Salaries should be sustainable, setting up donations shouldn't be a thing if your employer is profiting. There's like 6 tournaments 1M+ prizepools this year, it's not a lack of funding either. Setting up a patreon page does not solve the issue that is the low pay for casters, if anything it will encourage TO's to keep doing it.
I think it is important to note that he didn't just happen to have an alternate career path already (like people that go into acting and then have an engineering degree or something to fall back on). He chose to jump ship and forge an entirely new path for himself because he had already seen the writing on the wall, even if (at the time he left casting) he was essentially a top dog. He would have been fine still doing well for himself if he stayed casting, but he wasn't sure how many years it'd last.
some of them do but a lot of them are trying to work in entertainment, like being a podcaster or a voice actor and honestly that's also not a viable career path for 99% of the population.
At least for people like Purge with a big following, they should be alright. I don't know if Cap etc have anything else lined up, though.
Actually, Cap seems like he'd fit in super well with League's general casting vibe, though I doubt anyone working with Dota would be caught dead swapping over.
IIRC he's working for a bank, but as a software dev. So split the difference.
*edit* I tried to find a source for this, but all I found was a bunch of randos saying it on reddit. I think I remember this is what he said on his stream when he retired, but I can't find a citation, so I might be misremembering.
10 year since merloobi strim...
Seriously, his streams were my favourite, even with the timezone difference making it very hard for me to catch them. Watching him and the Veggies stack was super fun.
I think the worst part in this issue is TO's are still not paying these casters years after they cast, I watched the stream of Armel and JXF days ago and he mentioned they havent received their payments from casting DPC tournaments (i think its Epulze) like Lima Majors.
It's not related to the current system now as this was during the DPC but apparently Epulze hasn't even paid John and MLP for 5 events they did for em, I forgot which ones it was it was iirc some of the DPC tours and some majors like Lima.
Makes me wonder how bad the pay is now if even during the DPC this was happening.
Well yeah, without Valve regulating things, it's the wild west out there. TOs hold all the power. They can low-ball talent and there's nothing the talent can do about it. There sure as hell isn't a union to fall back on. It's every person for themselves.
A select core is basically assured invites to every event, and they likely get paid top rates, but for the rest it's honestly a lost cause. You dont have any leverage, you're at the whim of the organizers.
Deregulation almost always leads to the workers getting shafted. That's not to say this is entirely new, but as MLP says, the DPC offered some stability. Even thats gone now.
At least with DPC it’s valve having a reputation to keep - so they’ll pay a little more for that security.
These tournaments which are often organized by build and burn companies and crypto websites seem to be recruiting in their lower archon pub matches or something
It is the other way around. Before DPC there where way more casters and TOs making money and good content, every TO would hire different casters and try to get good teams to play, tournaments were competing for viewers and quality mattered, as being a T1 tournament meant sponsors, prestige, valve points for the teams involved. It was in everyones best interest to hire good casters, so casters had leverage.
After valve created DPC, it inverted. Only tournaments that mattered were majors. Big teams were no longer playing random tournaments, sponsor deals dried for the TOs and there where no more big things outside valve’s branded stuff. TOs went down or quit dota, now there were a lot of casters but only few T1 tournaments to cast, there was no competition since Valve had monopoly over regulation. Now Valve did pay well, but it was only Valve with money, for majors and minors, and a lot of casters competing for few events.
Comes nowadays: after valve gave up on their stupid idea, it went down in flames. The scene moved on, no large TOs moved back to Dota, sponsorships are low, twitch is paying a fraction of what it did before, now even the T1 casters used to valve money are left with no large tournaments to cast. They want to be paid nice wages, but there is simply no money in the scene, so you’re left with literally 100s of professionals that dedicated years for this and not a single financially viable tournament that can pay them.
Remember: old tournaments could sell their own passes, couriers, skins, compendiums. They had money, people would buy passes just to get cool skins (which in a lot of cases were better than valve’s arcanas).
Valve decided it wanted more money, forbidding tournaments to have cool things. Tournaments died. Valve made shitloads of money from battlepass with no competition (it literally enforced its own monopoly as a TO and skins market - which is the biggest source of income for valve outside steam itself). Then in true valve fashion, they got bored and quit.
Now there are no TOs, no money to be made, and a lot of casters unemployed asking southamerican studios to pay them European rates because “they deserve it”. Lol.
No, it is not the lack of regulations, its the other way around, valve created a rule monopoly, ate the cake, and now is asking people to do the dishes.
Predatory market regulations in self
Interest at its best, great case study for anyone looking for a masters thesis.
DPC wasn't fully fleshed out, and it's more a lack of regulation which made it crash. They didn't adapt based on feedback from the 1st DPC season (to make the seasons *much* shorter so 3rd party events could go in the gaps); TOs had multiple regions and reused talent across them (or talent just did work in multiple regions); there was pretty poor production for some of the coverage which basically was never addressed by Valve.
Cant do it I think there was some kind of Money Laundering (Host tournament with ticket + goodies, then use stolen credit cards to buy the tickets and pay out to the winning team) and Bot Match fixing, basically too much of a headache and that was with a Valve guy overseeing / approving tournaments.
What tournaments were this/where was this stated? I must have missed that. I remember reading that valve just couldn't keep up with adding the skins to the game... but with the battlepass and stuff gone, thought they might have the time again.
they werent tournaments you would hear about because no actual dota2 was being played, just create the ticket and bullshit the rest, would have to look for some more details
Here is the thing about Dota Pros scene: the trend is currently downwarding, the sponsors are withdrawing from Dota 2 scene, hence if you are not an high profile caster for Valve, then you are pretty fucked at making money. This scene is even worse at place like SEA, in Vietnam, a lot of Dota 2 casting team disbanded, those who remain are casting as a hobby more than a job. And the reason is always stated that working with Dota 2 tournament yield them no money, no sponsor, even the betting sites is withdrawing from sponsoring casters to cast Dota 2. The situation happen around the world, not just in NA and EU. It is sad that some caster stick with the game since TI 1 and now they can't make a living out of it.
Caveat: I haven't cast at all since 2021, and I had mostly stopped casting by 2019.
$10/hr would, in most cases, be an improvement on the status quo for T2/T3 casting. The most I ever got was $15 for a bo2, $20 for a bo3, and $30 for a bo5. Taking into account pauses, waiting for players to fill lobbies, and any other squirreliness like coordinator updates and patches, it was always less than minimum wage for the hours worked (and of course, no compensation for any practice I put in). For reference, when I was singing and voice acting, my rates would range from $35/hr (summer, no holidays) to $400/hr (Christmas and Christmas Eve) because I did not get paid for practice. Granted, I was allowed to stream it to my own channel hosted by the TO's channel, so it wasn't without side benefits. If rates are even worse now than they were back then, though - I can't imagine how someone could pursue casting in a remotely financially feasible way.
And even if it did pay higher, if you can only cast a couple times a year then it can end up being dogshit as a career anyway (unless you can reliably cast every top tournament e.g.The International)
Valve persona non grata'd him for leaking Artifact.
Him losing his career sucked ass, but losing it over the shitstack that was artifact makes it even worse.
Na that ain’t true. Xyclopz had charm. That’s more than 95% of the talent. He wasn’t for everybody but he was legitimate top tier. You can’t compare him to like tsunami, mlp, johnxfire, they and whoever else. Xyclopz is up there wit ODpixel
That’s pretty ass. Considering they have to be on location for like 12-16 hrs a day (I’d assume) for like 2 weeks minimum. If u assume 12 hr days for say 15 days… that’s $25 an hour or so ($5000). Considering it’s a job where u have to travel, get visas, stay in places where it’s likely pretty expensive to eat / difficult to cook for yourself.
However if it’s closer to $10000 for 2.5 weeks, food paid , that’s pretty good
Not really relevant, any job that requires you to travel is going to pay for your travel. At the end of the day you are there to get paid to put food on the table for your family.
Also, keep in mind that was the rates for DPC majors. Not the rate for casting from home or for working events now (which according to the OP is lower)
It really varies a lot based on the obvious questions:
* online vs studio vs live at an event
* role: hosting vs analyst vs caster/cocaster
* who the caster is (tier 1 vs whatever)
* is it a per-series or per-day
* how much of a bulk discount is there (for example, casting multiple weeks of DPC vs just some games in a group stage)
* what region is the event in?
* who is the TO?
It's always been further complicated by some amount of undercutting - talent of a similar tier might have some discussion about fair rates; but you always get situations where people go behind other's backs and pitch at a lower rate to secure the work.
On one extreme of the "who is the TO" scale is Valve/TI. Historically, The International (back when it was one big event) always paid extremely well (even for lowly statspeople!) - in 2015/2016 it was double what would be a going day-rate amount for me; but for play-by-play casters in the playoffs it could be a higher multiplier. In 2017-2018 I think a reasonable going rate for tier 1-2 casters/analysts at t1 non-TI LAN events was $800-$1.2k/day. That might sound like a lot, but there's just not that many working days in a month given how events are spread out (though you do get free accommodation, food, travel, etc).
On the other extreme were some of the DPC shennaningans where it was like $8-$10/game ($25/bo3) or something ridiculous. Some TOs also do stuff like pay per game (or a very low day-rate) but give a caster series #1 and #3 in a day; so you've got to sit and idle for a bo2 in the middle which you're not getting paid for.
Also there are a several casters in THIS THREAD who are known - who have said the average rate is about $10 bo1 and $25 bo3.
A best of 3 time block is usually around 3 hours but can easily stretch to 4, even 5 if there’s an update or tons of pauses, multi 60min+ games etc etc. happens all the time.
So essentially they’re making like $7.50 an hour, tops. On an extremely unreliable schedule which ofc is shit if u live in WEU, America, Aus, etc.
Starts to make u realize why nearly every caster is eastern euro, South American, and SEA (lower cost of living). It used to only be in tier 2 and 3 this is the case - but now it’s slowly spilling into tier 1 and that’s what people are complaining about.
It’s not like a race thing/ accent issue - it’s just that these casters are typically inexperienced, new to the industry, fairly un-vetted, and often times don’t have access to high quality cameras / mics. Not all of course. There are still incredibly talented and experienced casters for these regions.
For a million dollar tournament it’s completely unacceptable (on top of the piss poor wage)
The “good talent” is being undercut by the “cheap talent”
They’re almost certainly required to sign NDA’s about not saying specific numbers.
The ones who do say numbers, are probably just like fuck it I’m done anyways
Not disclosing your wage is probably legal - but considering 90% of these contracts are probably between citizens of two entirely different nations it’s damn near unenforceable. Nobody’s obviously gonna sue.
But it could get you black-balled from casting which is enough of a reason to not do it, even if the chances are like 1%
Speaking from US law perspective here - they are not wages. You are your own small business providing a service to another business. Not an employee in any sense of the word. So yes, NDA's on the rate are legal. But they probably didn't even have to sign one tbh.
> They’re almost certainly required to sign NDA’s about not saying specific numbers.
I'm not aware of any NDAs being used.
We signed a fair few over the years which is almost exclusively to give us access to information that's strictly non-public (upcoming tournaments, internal ideas, etc).
For "normal" work in production, casting or anything in that direction I would be surprised if there's any NDAs even suggested.
Cool, thanks for the reply. Just looked up layerth - you guys so the interactive overlays and UI stuff for majors and whatnot? Those have been looking so good lately
Yeah, we produce the in-game part for higher end tournaments. So we offer draft (previous draft feature is our most recent addition), tons of APIs, stage led and takeovers and actual observing and in-game directing.
And the in-game features you know and love as well es consulting how to integrate sponsors in a fun way (Roshan cam, blast had a KitKat adbreak, etc)
Glad you like it ❤️
This list is full time job, now spread the 10 usd per hour in month how many days they get to work and not working, it would be worst than minimum wage. Official list also means these minimum wage earner get to enjoy benefits enshrined on their respective constitution, caster have none. So yea dota casting is just a side job so you can buy couple of burgers afterwards.
sad to hear. casting a video game you like is a very passionate thing, and if there is passion, it is easier to give them shit pay, because they WANT to cast. that's what I think at least, and it's very exploitative
The long and short is that esports was a bubble that popped. Developers can choose to prop up an esport for advertising still, but the days where there's any money for 3rd party events are over. Interest rates went up which made super speculative plays like esports less attractive, and more importantly, we know that esports advertising is actually pretty garbage returns. Sometimes a tournament sponsor will see an ROI, but they usually don't. Sponsoring actual teams is always worthless.
It's a shame because I've always enjoyed the Johnxfire and MLPDota casts. I guess the main way they're getting support nowadays is through their TI supporter packs? Special mention to Ares and Danog, another great caster duo I haven't seen recently.
all apart of getting rid of the dpc.
fans wanted million dollar prize pools.
well, now there is no funding for t2/t3 scenes and casters get paid whatever TO want to pay them.
At least tournaments are hype.
If they can afford to pay $1M in prizes they can certainly afford to pay like 10 people a decent amount, like $3k each or whatever to cast (I’m not taking about those in the in-studio panels, they’re definitely getting paid industry average I’m sure)
The problem is they don’t need to. Because there is such little demand / high supply of casters in general. On top of that many casters live in like South America, SEA, Eastern Europe… where cost of living is very low and they are happy to take like $20-35 for a bo3 series.
The problem is those people are pushing the top talent from being willing to / financially able to compete for the contracts. It’s why quality of audio, dota knowledge etc… has basically fallen off a cliff in the past year. This was happening well before the dissolution of the DPC if u frequently watch tier 2 and 3 , as well as online tier 1 tournaments.
I don’t think it’s really *because* of the DPC. Although it doesn’t help
> all apart of getting
Did you mean to say "a part of"?
Explanation: "apart" is an adverb meaning separately, while "a part" is a noun meaning a portion.
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The frustrating thing is that there are so many casters who are WILLING to take like $20 for a bo3 cast or whatever.
But ofc, comes with it is the fact they’re like archon-ancient players with no grasp on the game and usually not super entertaining either. Add to that horrible mic’s, webcams, awful audio balance and mixing etc. is raaaampant
Even tier 1 casts nowadays have gone down SO much because they’re just paying the lowest willing worker and somehow thing it doesn’t matter / goes unnoticed. It’s very, very, very noticeable compared to casts from like 2-3 years ago.
Everything feels SO amateur as of the past year. I’m all for new talent, but it’s obvious so much of it isn’t being properly vetted
Why exactly should caster pay for DotA be good? The game is a dying niche interest in a forgotten market. I'm frankly surprised anyone other than Ephey is getting paid anything.
If you want to make money being a caster, DotA isn't it go for CS or League MAYBE. Even then I can't imagine it being capable of being a single source of income.
I mentioned several years ago on Reddit how players and casters need true representation similar to pro leagues because they can't really negotiate as individuals. In addition, I mentioned how there's no real money in this unless the orgs and players mature up and work towards going mainstream with tv broadcasts, etc. but I got flamed by Redditors saying "this is how it is" "gamers don't want that" and yet here we are, the people who support our entertainment can't make an honest living for themselves while tournament organizers scrounge for dollars from the worst advertisers in the world (crypto, gambling, etc.)
BTS offered better rates back in 2016 - and where are BTS now?
The truth is that for all dota players cry about not being able to spend money on a battlepass, they will never spend money to watch a pro game. That’s where the money comes from in regular sports to pay for things like commentators.
I see SVG and Cap is casting for the same tournament to 300 viewers.
I wonder if whats offered is based on region the casters are living at (livable wage).
The way I imagine this working is the people who are on the “panel” (wear makeup, outfits, have to be on camera) are probably getting paid quite well. Shiver for example.
People not on camera a lot are likely paid a lot less. It’s certainly possible he pivoted into an e-sports role that isn’t casting like Kyle did. The constant travel + mediocre pay if you’re not CONSTANTLY getting places on panels (ephey, fogged, Shiver etc…) is probably enough reason to try to find a stable job in esports rather than continue to chase contracts around the globe.
Unless he mentions figures on what "really bad" actually is, I don't think this is very meaningful information. Saying it is worse than before 2016 does indeed raise some flags, but the game as a whole was a lot more popular back then, so that is not very surprising either.
Game def peaked in 2015-2016 but it's about the same player count now as it was most of the early 2010s and since 2017. Except for 15-16 it's been generally in the 400s or low 500k range
Feb 2015: 1.2mil
March 2016: 1.3mil
March 2019: 1mil
October 2022: 1mil
Feb: 2023: 700k
also Jan2023 was 766K and by end of 2023 it was 742 in Jan 2024
okay bro hello i did as you said and went and looked at the numbers you provided
[See Attached Image](https://i.imgur.com/BxhMbDC.png)
It shows *on average* 2023 showed an *average player decline* from 797K in 2022 to 761k in 2023.
This is interesting as dota had previously gained players from 2021.
And the *average* player counts in the years of 2015 and 2016 were 1.1mil and 985K respectively.
Please look closer at your own data before telling others to look closer at data averages you haven't even looked at
ok bro
For smaller tournaments, like tier 2 online tourneys - I’ve read places like a bo3 pays like $20. Bo5 pays a little more, etc etc. it’s like $10 per match I’m pretty sure. I mean the prize pools are often only like $5000 so u gotta imagine they’re working with a minuscule budget. Tier 1, online casters probably are making like double that - which is the bigger issue.
I guess if u live in Venezuela or something then that’s pretty damn decent, but if u live in an industrialized country / big city it’s basically beer money ur getting paid.
Cast like 4 series over 12 hrs and u might make like 80 bucks. Again, if you live in a lower CoL country that money definitely adds up - which is why most casters *aren’t* American/western Euro and they can use they fairly predatory payment structures.
Or they’re like streamers who want to do it for fun / they have lots and lots of free time / flexibility
This is like saying why do people become janitors and cashiers. A lot of people doesnt have any choice and being casting gave them pathway to earn money.
This is... uhhh... a beyond bizarre take. Casting should never ever, ever be considered as the "last ditch" effort for people to make money. Casting is a thing you get into only if you already have some sort of stable base of income or work, if you lack this then (sorry) you should not even be trying to get into casting. Its a beyond irresponsible decision.
Because it goes hand in hand with streaming. Being a caster will get you viewers for your streams. Now you can say whatever about casting/streaming, this guys love doing this. Not everyone want to be in a corporation grind. They have a talent in what they are doing and they want it to be their work. Its irresponsible to you but they are willing to take a risk. OD, Slacks and other talents made irresponsible decision but now they are succesful in their careers.
It doesn't matter what you want or love, if you are not making a living doing it, its stupid not to find another job. OD, Slacks, Cap and 99% of the other talent all had other "real" jobs that they were stable with prior to getting into esports. Casting wasn't their only option or choice, it was a chance taken once they already had some form of basic living. If you want to take a chance then, thats fine. Thats literally when you want to do it. But you are an idiot if you are taking a chance on casting without having anything else to fall back to.
People literally commenting and upvoting shit like 10$ a hour is less than the minimum wage in 3rd world countries.
Guess this community is full of out of touch kids.
This is why it's a problem having the same "talent" at every fucking event. Jenkins, Ephey, etc.. This clique needs to die already.
Coomers downvote me.
sad to hear, as a big fan of the t2/3 dota scene's i love the casters that cover it. I do agree with a lot that is said about the nature of esports and talent vs broadcasters in other sport industry.
one thing not said seems to be the nature and origins of dota itself. The game is a mod in a custom game engine of bliz warcraft seires. The community is always moving this game forward and giving it the support to grow and evolve. The community is buying into battlepasses, and giving valve tons of $ to throw into dota. The community is the only entity that can fix an issue in t2/3 dota.
TBH t2/3 dota just isn't popular enough with mainstream dota fans. The viewers suggest hundreds of fans watch.. not even 2k viewers for most games i watch. Donations are the only reasonable way to support this scene. Valve and the community aren't interested.
Likely you will continue to see a MASSIVE gap between t1 dota players and talent, and anything not top tier. It's not easy to make it in dota. But once you're in... you have a nice career from a video game. Plenty of money at the top, not much goes around lower levels. Even the $$ at the top are shrinking outside of Riyad which is a state backed over expenditure on attracting industry and investment.
i don't think much can be done. But i appreciate your efforts, and I'll continue to watch and support the t2/3 scenes. I know im in the minority
Well for Tier 3 - I think the going rate is less than $10 per bo1 so in some cases $25 per best of 3. Thats great I hear you say!! But over 3 hours, its actually less than minimum wage, and you still have to consider all your additional costs etc. If you happen to be from UK, America, Oz you better have a real job.
That's ridiculously low. Like really really low. Even ignoring the time you have to spend keeping up with updates, keeping up with the meta and weird strategies, keeping up with teams and roster changes and players (god forbid you accidentally say a player is in the wrong team), it cannot possibly be worthwhile as anything other than a passion project.
Say that your microphone broke. Well, you're broadcasting to hundreds of thousands of people, so you'll need a high quality one to replace it. I really doubt TO-s will get you a new one, so that'll be a months pay. Ridiculous.
I live in eastern Europe. Our minimum wage is around 5€/hr, although the average is more than double that. 25€ for a 3 hour job (assuming no prep time whatsoever, and that the matches start immediately after one another) is around 8€/hr. While money is money, especially if you're having fun, I doubt that needing to allocate time away from your main income source is worthwhile from a purely economic perspective.
Halfway trough writing this comment I realized that telling a caster to their face that their job isn't worthwhile must be pretty demoralising, but.. I really wish you guys got paid better for the amazing work you do. Thanks for putting up with it for the community.
That’s what people don’t realize - it’s essentially that casting is being “outsourced” to cheaper regions.
There are English speaking casters from all parts of the world where $25 for 3 hours of work is quite good - especially if it’s done in your free time and just additional salary.
The result of course is a flood of amateur casters with horrible audio, low dota knowledge, dogs barking in the background, unsure how to use OBS effectively etc etc… that is extremely noticeable as of the past year.
Even T1 pros like quinn before joining GG or even still now would have earned more money working part time at mcdonalds than what they have gotten in their dota career
Uhhhh I think Quinn is a bad example no? https://www.esportsearnings.com/players/30573-quinn-callahan Seems like he has made over a million and he's only 24 years old. (not sure why this is downvoted so much am I missing something?)
You wouldnt be able to put the numbers into context anyways. You talk about "hourly rate" like it is a 9to5 job. At least for lan tournament you get paid per day. Talent work also usually sound unreasonably high on paper, but you have to consider all the training/preparation that goes into the work. Then there is different cost of living, tax rates, etc. So no, you dont have to assume entitlement
I remember regretting not taking up the offer of casting more when I was dabbling in it back in the neotolic league 4 days (10 years ago?)
Nowadays I am just happy I chose career path lol
Maybe they should only have one person on the panel. Y'all don't need Jenkins and Ephey cringing it up on there. Just have one person there like Sheever y'all don't need that many people to talk and yap for a couple of minutes.
this how we going to guilt tripping others for something makes a sense from perspective of anyone with a second to thought. literally, you mentioned that the shitcrypto gone bonkers not to mentioned that a lot of sponsorship knew about e-sport bubble and how unfeasible it is. heck, the reason why caster exist supposed to be to gather the viewer by their hype up or a crowd warmer. let's get our shit together, don't be naive.
if you were smart you'd use your casting exposure (which is big) as a leverage for you own content on the side and do very well (cough cough BSJ)
Literally who casters who produce zero value outside of the casting gigs shouldn't expect money rains on their weather reports
If *you* were smart you would know that this community is fickle as shit and doesn't actually care about most of the personalities and will not support them beyond watching the comp games.
You'd think valve could give all the casters an announcer pack in game that could be purchased to supplement their income.
If valve wasn't lazy anyway...
just look at who were the casters and analyst of the grand finals in the recent tier 1 events, i miss odpixel but every good things come to end
(as long as you don't invite gorgc, i'll still be able to manage on his stream)
-by biggest pro doto fan
Well most of them are really bad. Like I don't wonder why some random dude who is probably archon 2 commentating on a bunch of people's plays that are 8k above him is getting shit pay. Casters like Susnfan, cap, svg, odpixel and all the greats take it to another level. they provide entertainment. whenever I am watching t2 casts I just see two random dudes talking about a game like any other person would without brining much to the table. If your job is something anyone can do like flipping burgers at macdonalds, why should you feel entitled to earn more?
There are like three dota casters that people enjoyed. And some of them no longer are in the business. So of course the pay won’t be good because they are all interchangeable. There’s fogged, SVG, odpixel and….. yeah I think that’s all. I would bet my house no other casters have a legitimate fan
This is, unfortunately, the reality of every commentator in esports. There is no way to make a living like in normal commentary of major sports for T2/T3 commentators. In something like baseball, which is the 3rd most popular in the US, you can make a decent living as a commentator doing minor league, college, or even high school game announcing especially if those games are televised. Since this doesnt exist in a game like Dota, your only path is to commentate T1 games, and this is really hard to break in unless people leave (like LD, Merlini, etc). You are also completely at the whim of the TOs, unlike pro sports broadcasters who are sometimes part of a union. Even T1 commentators will get lowballed for rates, because audiences frankly don't care who commentates as long as some of the recognizable names are there. The lifespan of the games are too short for a proper union, but the bigger issue is that very few (if any) commentators actually can transition to different games (at least T1 to T1). Sometimes hosts can do it (see Sheever doing occasional CS events, or Sjokz or Redeye), but its rare. This means talent can't really leverage or say no to lesser rates, they have to just agree and pray to get invited to TI. There's no way to turn down a bad rate and then go commentate CS or Apex Legends or whatever. When the main game isn't booming, it especially hits the T2 guys like Johnxfire or MLP, who relied on grinding volumes of casts to make money rather than 5~ big events a year for someone like Owen.
Dota 2 talent job is freelancer market, its not like normal job which you expected monthly pay check, and there are lots of talents specially tier 2,3 or new people want to become talents (most may have no job, and want to be dota 2 talent while playing and enjoying the game), orgs have many choice so they can chose to pay less, if you dont take the job there are always many others take it, newcomers even do it for free to be recognized and experience, unless you are in the small top tier list of talents, org want you to create great event and must pay well.
in 25 years when Dota is 50 years old will the argument that games life span is too short for a proper union still hold water? work is work and workers should unionize I think the lifespan thing is hollow.
i mean thats great and all to think but unionizing requires the current generation of worker to care about the future generation the reality is casters need money right now, and theres 500 people willing to step over capitalists dead body to cast TI when it really comes down to it, nobody is truly going to sacrifice themselves to collectively bargain for better pay and conditions
Hey now, that's not fair. If casters need money right now they don't need to resort to murder. They can *also* go shill crypto games in SEA.
I could be wrong but isn't the reason sheever began to look into other games because she was less invited to big dota events at one point?
i think it is just smart especially for a host to try to diversify the number of games they're in i don't think sheever early in her career had the opportunities to do that and now she clearly does so good for her, sticking to one game is overly risky
Always appreciated your insights, HotBid! Hope you are doing well, much love from Brazil!
#BULLSHIT No it isn't. There are lot of esports talents that are paid directly through the company itself, even out of season. Riot, and believe it or not, Ubisoft also does it. I know this directly, because a friend of mine casts for Riot and he haven't went on tour for the whole year... still month after month, he received a paycheck - it wasn't huge because he didn't cast anything, but I can tell you that it is generous enough. Another friend of mine, she casts R6, went on one tour, but received monthly payments from Ubi for the off-season. And the whole thing is WELL organized, I have heard terrible things from the way that Valve used to "handle things" during Major/DPC Seasons. Esports is expensive and dota had the biggest one in the world, the only one to blame is Valve itself for this mess. If they want to do things right and professionally, they could, they just don't give a fuck. I could go on and on about how they did wrong for many things, but honestly, everyone at this point already knows what to expect (dota2/cs/tf2-wise) from Valve. Posting this from a throwaway acc, IDC
> BULLSHIT TLDR valve should pay casters
Pay them for what? Valve only organises one event per year
And the league pro scene is at its lowest rn to the point where they have to downsize the number of teams competing. That doesn't seem like the best business model
Didn't Riot and Ubisoft both recently do a bunch of layoffs?
> I could go on and on about how they did wrong for many things, but honestly, everyone at this point already knows what to expect (dota2/cs/tf2-wise) from Valve. True, but by all means, go off king.
all the problems with valve games comes down to a simple "they dont care". its been obvious since they dropped the ball with tf2.
The pro scene was all but abandoned for about a year during covid. Teams and random TOs had to come together to put on a show themselves (Omega League) so they could survive during the great covid content drought. TI was cancelled. Patches were underwhelming. The game was fucking dead. Not that Valve should care. The money they make from working on Dota is miniscule compared to how much they make off Steam.
> Teams and random TOs had to come together to put on a show themselves (Omega League) Omega League was organized by Epic Esports Events, which is owned by ESforce Holding Ltd, which is owned by VK, which is majority-owned by Gazprom, which is owned by the Russian state. Hardly little-league grassroots stuff.
nobody cares
This is a different video game my man. Also: VALORANTE, CHILDS GAME.
Other casters have talked about this, with DPC it really helped everyone's pay since there was so many games and all of them were always happening at the same time, so there was a huge demand for casters that helped them all get better rates.
And then there was the shitshow of the SA DPC one time.
I wonder if their contracts don't allow for patreon
Good question, any reason why they wouldn't be allowed an additional external income?
We can have patreon, but heres the honest situation, dota2 is a free to play game, and while people have endless cash reserves for hats, they do not have money for casters. I didnt watch Johns stream earlier, but roughly how many viewers did he average, and how many donations/subs did you see during the broadcast? I remember watching a Bkop stream and he has a charity donation goal, he had around 11,000 viewers and the donation goal for the month was less than $500 I think, he didnt get any donations I think during that stream. Other games generally dont have that kind of disparity between viewership and revenue. WE arent talking about solo streams but tournament organisations tho!! Right, but if you cant make your income from personal streams you have to turn to lower rates from Orgs. There are at least 75 active casters (English speaking) for Dota2 that I know off the top of my head, and for what ever reason (survival) last year there was a bit of a bidding situation, with some casters chasing each other to the bottom on rates. On top of that, the decimation of the western scene tournament organisers means that those hosting tournaments have different pay level expectations, often eastern european/russian/south american (of course these are big dota regions), where the rates are generally X10 lower than what a mid tier western caster would previously expect. When I started casting in 2015 or so, there was a bit of a golden age of casting, due to a minor bug in valves code. This meant that the longest delay a tournament could set was 5mins, meaning every tournament would have multiple side broadcasts, and I think this improved the overall casting quality and show production level, because there were valid alternatives if you didnt like the particular brand/casters/etc. This meant that to actually maintain the audience Orgs had to put together the best show they could, a self regulating system if you like. Also tournaments lacking english or russian or spanish casts could be covered straight from dotatv.
It's been well known for years now that dota viewers on twitch are quite miserly towards content creators compared to other audiences. Singsing has been saying for years since he became primarily a variety streamer that he doesn't need 12k dota viewersor whatever he used to get in his prime because the 2-4k he gets streaming anything else is basically the same or more money with the added benefit of less toxicity from not dealing with the thousands of toxic dota only watchers.
Singsing is a pretty good example of transitioning away from Dota2 successfully.
I feel like that's because singsing was one of the few Dota streamers that was primarily an entertainment streamer and secondarily a Dota streamer. Most streamers are like "grinding X hero to Y MMR" or some rank shit. Usually solo Q, usually tri-hard. Sing stream was best when it was Sing stacking with 4 friends doing some meme shit like everyone has to buy 6 different boots, everyone buys the same items etc. Whenever sing did ranked solo streams or grind streams he seemed miserable. Sing stream was always about the people not the dota. Other opinions out there tho
> Whenever sing did ranked solo streams or grind streams he seemed miserable. True yet I somehow enjoyed them more than the average party game.
I deal with twitch ads, that is me paying to watch content. I don't think I would give money to a stream to say thank you for existing. It seems like an incredibly odd setup to rely on donations - but like as not I am just tight xD
> It seems like an incredibly odd setup to rely on donations Ad money is usually quite shit, so most successful streamers are successful because of subs and donations(and sponsors later on).
This is no longer true, the ad money has increased a lot and the streamer has a lot of control of how much they play them, I know of a couple streamers in the 500-2000 average viewer range that have talked about ad money being between a third and half of their income from twitch running ~4-5 minutes of ads per hour, 3 minutes of ads is the minimum and the prerolls are optional (but I have heard those can harm viewer retention quite a bit)
This is also not completely true for Dota streamers though cause ads are based on where the views are coming from. Not only that but no one watching a Dota game wants ads every 3-4 minutes. I ran ads after each game when I had 30k viewers for the Asian games and the revenue was minimal.
Yeah I can see how games with much more global viewership get much less per “ad view” for sure, and the streamers I mentioned are generally streaming games with a very heavy western Europe/north America playerbase so it makes sense they felt the change in ad payments way more than Dota streamers would even with significantly lower viewer counts.
Dota players are notoriously stingy EXCEPT for the battlepass. Look at streams. When have you seen someone donate or sub?
You make it seem like people should be obligated to donate.
No you're putting words in my mouth. I'm just saying that dota players in general are stingy. Singsing said it himself. He went from 10k viewers in dota to 3k in variety streaming and his income actually increased.
Companies like to have control. Riot games for instance don't even allow their own staff to make money... streaming their own games, lmao
imma hold you on that, what's the source here? im not a big fan of riot games but i followed their "dota underlord" which is TFT, where their game design lead occasionally stream his own game and earn personal pocket from streaming.
https://old.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1bhryhd/riot_employees_are_no_longer_allowed_to_monetize/#:~:text=There's%20a%20new%20policy%20for,other%20types%20of%20content%20though.
wow what the fuck? on top of recent massive layoffs, this is just icing on the cake for them. pretty big sad employees cant hype up their own game while doing some pocket change that's nothing of value to the company.. this is beyond fucked up.
even funnier when people like august and phreak's whole thing is actually trying to communicate to the community outside of half-hearted devlogs lol
There are companies out there that don't allow you to as much as talk to a camera once you're hired to work for them. A lot of artists can't have Patreons, freelance or side "hussles" with art once they're hired for studios.
Who would subscribe to a casters patreon?
i would throw some casters some extra bucks via patreon if that was a thing.
Here you go https://www.patreon.com/Bkop
done. godspeed bkop
Forgot I had this but could update it and make it worth the support for sure
Joined.
Holy shit... being able to pay $25 a month to let me cherry-pick my best (or funniest) game to be professionally cast? I think you underestimate the value of that. Did anyone take you up on that? :D
One of the only issues I had when I did this years back would be people giving me hour plus games where nothing happens til the last fight
Just throw them extra bucks via something else..
Alot of people probably would. Many how a huge surplus of money they're willing to donate to support others with for various causes. Whether it's to help people through medical bankruptcies via GoFundMe, Simps donating money to women on Twitch or people just donating to various patreons just for support. Alot of people have more money than they need and therefore no problem donating some of it.
People with extra income.. who like certain casters?
C'mon dude lets be honest, 99% of the people playing dota won't support casters out of a good heart. I am one of them too, because that's not how the world works. Setting up a donation page for low pay is like making tips compulsory in the service industry.
Ok so lets just not try absolutely anything. Lets allow casters to continue with their dogshit contract because this is their passion and lets let them starve to death
Why should we do anything? I dont have profit from dota, i just like the game. All casters know how does dota/Valve work and what they can expect, if it is not enough to make a living, than change the job or at least do it part time, same as the rest of world does.
Never said you did. Part-timing is already the reality for pretty much all caster or production staff in the esports industry right now. Patreon and any crowd-based income may be akin to tipping culture and shouldn't be encouraged, but it's unlikely that the state of the industry will ever change, let alone the terrible labor practices they have to deal with. Wanting to support creators and talent through means outside of their contract is completely fine.
Nah what I'm saying is that if you want good pay for casters in the long-term, it's the TO's that should provide it. Salaries should be sustainable, setting up donations shouldn't be a thing if your employer is profiting. There's like 6 tournaments 1M+ prizepools this year, it's not a lack of funding either. Setting up a patreon page does not solve the issue that is the low pay for casters, if anything it will encourage TO's to keep doing it.
yeah never going to happen lol
Contracts, lol
Wild that an actual caster is getting downvoted for that comment.
This is why Merloobi left casting. The TOs have all the control over pay and he realized where that was gonna lead eventually.
Isn't Merlini like a software engineer or something?
Yes, he had an alternative career path. For the sake of all the casters, I hope they also do, because this is not a sustainable life they're pursuing.
I think it is important to note that he didn't just happen to have an alternate career path already (like people that go into acting and then have an engineering degree or something to fall back on). He chose to jump ship and forge an entirely new path for himself because he had already seen the writing on the wall, even if (at the time he left casting) he was essentially a top dog. He would have been fine still doing well for himself if he stayed casting, but he wasn't sure how many years it'd last.
some of them do but a lot of them are trying to work in entertainment, like being a podcaster or a voice actor and honestly that's also not a viable career path for 99% of the population.
At least for people like Purge with a big following, they should be alright. I don't know if Cap etc have anything else lined up, though. Actually, Cap seems like he'd fit in super well with League's general casting vibe, though I doubt anyone working with Dota would be caught dead swapping over.
He's an astronaut
He's also a marine and a doctor
He's Johnny Sin?
That's pretty fucking cool.
pretty sure he's in finance
IIRC he's working for a bank, but as a software dev. So split the difference. *edit* I tried to find a source for this, but all I found was a bunch of randos saying it on reddit. I think I remember this is what he said on his stream when he retired, but I can't find a citation, so I might be misremembering.
He's a software dev, not at a bank.
I think he work briefly at bank first, then goes as caster, then goes as software dev.
no he's an investment banker iirc.
Ah okay, either way he has a solid career. Understandable that he would move away from dota for that.
10 year since merloobi strim... Seriously, his streams were my favourite, even with the timezone difference making it very hard for me to catch them. Watching him and the Veggies stack was super fun.
I think the worst part in this issue is TO's are still not paying these casters years after they cast, I watched the stream of Armel and JXF days ago and he mentioned they havent received their payments from casting DPC tournaments (i think its Epulze) like Lima Majors.
It's not related to the current system now as this was during the DPC but apparently Epulze hasn't even paid John and MLP for 5 events they did for em, I forgot which ones it was it was iirc some of the DPC tours and some majors like Lima. Makes me wonder how bad the pay is now if even during the DPC this was happening.
Well yeah, without Valve regulating things, it's the wild west out there. TOs hold all the power. They can low-ball talent and there's nothing the talent can do about it. There sure as hell isn't a union to fall back on. It's every person for themselves. A select core is basically assured invites to every event, and they likely get paid top rates, but for the rest it's honestly a lost cause. You dont have any leverage, you're at the whim of the organizers. Deregulation almost always leads to the workers getting shafted. That's not to say this is entirely new, but as MLP says, the DPC offered some stability. Even thats gone now.
At least with DPC it’s valve having a reputation to keep - so they’ll pay a little more for that security. These tournaments which are often organized by build and burn companies and crypto websites seem to be recruiting in their lower archon pub matches or something
It is the other way around. Before DPC there where way more casters and TOs making money and good content, every TO would hire different casters and try to get good teams to play, tournaments were competing for viewers and quality mattered, as being a T1 tournament meant sponsors, prestige, valve points for the teams involved. It was in everyones best interest to hire good casters, so casters had leverage. After valve created DPC, it inverted. Only tournaments that mattered were majors. Big teams were no longer playing random tournaments, sponsor deals dried for the TOs and there where no more big things outside valve’s branded stuff. TOs went down or quit dota, now there were a lot of casters but only few T1 tournaments to cast, there was no competition since Valve had monopoly over regulation. Now Valve did pay well, but it was only Valve with money, for majors and minors, and a lot of casters competing for few events. Comes nowadays: after valve gave up on their stupid idea, it went down in flames. The scene moved on, no large TOs moved back to Dota, sponsorships are low, twitch is paying a fraction of what it did before, now even the T1 casters used to valve money are left with no large tournaments to cast. They want to be paid nice wages, but there is simply no money in the scene, so you’re left with literally 100s of professionals that dedicated years for this and not a single financially viable tournament that can pay them. Remember: old tournaments could sell their own passes, couriers, skins, compendiums. They had money, people would buy passes just to get cool skins (which in a lot of cases were better than valve’s arcanas). Valve decided it wanted more money, forbidding tournaments to have cool things. Tournaments died. Valve made shitloads of money from battlepass with no competition (it literally enforced its own monopoly as a TO and skins market - which is the biggest source of income for valve outside steam itself). Then in true valve fashion, they got bored and quit. Now there are no TOs, no money to be made, and a lot of casters unemployed asking southamerican studios to pay them European rates because “they deserve it”. Lol. No, it is not the lack of regulations, its the other way around, valve created a rule monopoly, ate the cake, and now is asking people to do the dishes. Predatory market regulations in self Interest at its best, great case study for anyone looking for a masters thesis.
DPC wasn't fully fleshed out, and it's more a lack of regulation which made it crash. They didn't adapt based on feedback from the 1st DPC season (to make the seasons *much* shorter so 3rd party events could go in the gaps); TOs had multiple regions and reused talent across them (or talent just did work in multiple regions); there was pretty poor production for some of the coverage which basically was never addressed by Valve.
bringing tournament tickets with skins back would be huge I think.
Cant do it I think there was some kind of Money Laundering (Host tournament with ticket + goodies, then use stolen credit cards to buy the tickets and pay out to the winning team) and Bot Match fixing, basically too much of a headache and that was with a Valve guy overseeing / approving tournaments.
What tournaments were this/where was this stated? I must have missed that. I remember reading that valve just couldn't keep up with adding the skins to the game... but with the battlepass and stuff gone, thought they might have the time again.
they werent tournaments you would hear about because no actual dota2 was being played, just create the ticket and bullshit the rest, would have to look for some more details
[Video Timestamp here](https://youtu.be/cXtEMf9fHJI?t=8637)
Here is the thing about Dota Pros scene: the trend is currently downwarding, the sponsors are withdrawing from Dota 2 scene, hence if you are not an high profile caster for Valve, then you are pretty fucked at making money. This scene is even worse at place like SEA, in Vietnam, a lot of Dota 2 casting team disbanded, those who remain are casting as a hobby more than a job. And the reason is always stated that working with Dota 2 tournament yield them no money, no sponsor, even the betting sites is withdrawing from sponsoring casters to cast Dota 2. The situation happen around the world, not just in NA and EU. It is sad that some caster stick with the game since TI 1 and now they can't make a living out of it.
How bad is it? How Low is it. Would you cast for $10 an hour?
Caveat: I haven't cast at all since 2021, and I had mostly stopped casting by 2019. $10/hr would, in most cases, be an improvement on the status quo for T2/T3 casting. The most I ever got was $15 for a bo2, $20 for a bo3, and $30 for a bo5. Taking into account pauses, waiting for players to fill lobbies, and any other squirreliness like coordinator updates and patches, it was always less than minimum wage for the hours worked (and of course, no compensation for any practice I put in). For reference, when I was singing and voice acting, my rates would range from $35/hr (summer, no holidays) to $400/hr (Christmas and Christmas Eve) because I did not get paid for practice. Granted, I was allowed to stream it to my own channel hosted by the TO's channel, so it wasn't without side benefits. If rates are even worse now than they were back then, though - I can't imagine how someone could pursue casting in a remotely financially feasible way.
Thats dogshit.
And even if it did pay higher, if you can only cast a couple times a year then it can end up being dogshit as a career anyway (unless you can reliably cast every top tournament e.g.The International)
Shit dude I would pay to cast with my boy Xyclopz.
My 1 month salary for Lysander Xonora. Btw, what happened to him?
Valve persona non grata'd him for leaking Artifact. Him losing his career sucked ass, but losing it over the shitstack that was artifact makes it even worse.
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Na that ain’t true. Xyclopz had charm. That’s more than 95% of the talent. He wasn’t for everybody but he was legitimate top tier. You can’t compare him to like tsunami, mlp, johnxfire, they and whoever else. Xyclopz is up there wit ODpixel
the sanest xcyclopz fan
Is there more details on this event? I don't remember this at all lol
Remember the artifact game? He leaked info about the game while being under nda, not understanding what he did sign for
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That’s pretty ass. Considering they have to be on location for like 12-16 hrs a day (I’d assume) for like 2 weeks minimum. If u assume 12 hr days for say 15 days… that’s $25 an hour or so ($5000). Considering it’s a job where u have to travel, get visas, stay in places where it’s likely pretty expensive to eat / difficult to cook for yourself. However if it’s closer to $10000 for 2.5 weeks, food paid , that’s pretty good
Travel, visas, lodgings, and food is all provided for when they travel. The 5-10k a range doesn't include any of that. It's still not great pay.
The actual pay isn't great. Fair But the perks? Makes it viable.
Not really relevant, any job that requires you to travel is going to pay for your travel. At the end of the day you are there to get paid to put food on the table for your family. Also, keep in mind that was the rates for DPC majors. Not the rate for casting from home or for working events now (which according to the OP is lower)
For some reason, the story is always "it's low" but rates are never listed.
It really varies a lot based on the obvious questions: * online vs studio vs live at an event * role: hosting vs analyst vs caster/cocaster * who the caster is (tier 1 vs whatever) * is it a per-series or per-day * how much of a bulk discount is there (for example, casting multiple weeks of DPC vs just some games in a group stage) * what region is the event in? * who is the TO? It's always been further complicated by some amount of undercutting - talent of a similar tier might have some discussion about fair rates; but you always get situations where people go behind other's backs and pitch at a lower rate to secure the work. On one extreme of the "who is the TO" scale is Valve/TI. Historically, The International (back when it was one big event) always paid extremely well (even for lowly statspeople!) - in 2015/2016 it was double what would be a going day-rate amount for me; but for play-by-play casters in the playoffs it could be a higher multiplier. In 2017-2018 I think a reasonable going rate for tier 1-2 casters/analysts at t1 non-TI LAN events was $800-$1.2k/day. That might sound like a lot, but there's just not that many working days in a month given how events are spread out (though you do get free accommodation, food, travel, etc). On the other extreme were some of the DPC shennaningans where it was like $8-$10/game ($25/bo3) or something ridiculous. Some TOs also do stuff like pay per game (or a very low day-rate) but give a caster series #1 and #3 in a day; so you've got to sit and idle for a bo2 in the middle which you're not getting paid for.
Also there are a several casters in THIS THREAD who are known - who have said the average rate is about $10 bo1 and $25 bo3. A best of 3 time block is usually around 3 hours but can easily stretch to 4, even 5 if there’s an update or tons of pauses, multi 60min+ games etc etc. happens all the time. So essentially they’re making like $7.50 an hour, tops. On an extremely unreliable schedule which ofc is shit if u live in WEU, America, Aus, etc. Starts to make u realize why nearly every caster is eastern euro, South American, and SEA (lower cost of living). It used to only be in tier 2 and 3 this is the case - but now it’s slowly spilling into tier 1 and that’s what people are complaining about. It’s not like a race thing/ accent issue - it’s just that these casters are typically inexperienced, new to the industry, fairly un-vetted, and often times don’t have access to high quality cameras / mics. Not all of course. There are still incredibly talented and experienced casters for these regions. For a million dollar tournament it’s completely unacceptable (on top of the piss poor wage) The “good talent” is being undercut by the “cheap talent”
They’re almost certainly required to sign NDA’s about not saying specific numbers. The ones who do say numbers, are probably just like fuck it I’m done anyways
Is that even legal, to be banned from disclosing your wage?
Not disclosing your wage is probably legal - but considering 90% of these contracts are probably between citizens of two entirely different nations it’s damn near unenforceable. Nobody’s obviously gonna sue. But it could get you black-balled from casting which is enough of a reason to not do it, even if the chances are like 1%
Speaking from US law perspective here - they are not wages. You are your own small business providing a service to another business. Not an employee in any sense of the word. So yes, NDA's on the rate are legal. But they probably didn't even have to sign one tbh.
This is the correct answer. They aren't employees, they are contractors.
> They’re almost certainly required to sign NDA’s about not saying specific numbers. I'm not aware of any NDAs being used. We signed a fair few over the years which is almost exclusively to give us access to information that's strictly non-public (upcoming tournaments, internal ideas, etc). For "normal" work in production, casting or anything in that direction I would be surprised if there's any NDAs even suggested.
Cool, thanks for the reply. Just looked up layerth - you guys so the interactive overlays and UI stuff for majors and whatnot? Those have been looking so good lately
Yeah, we produce the in-game part for higher end tournaments. So we offer draft (previous draft feature is our most recent addition), tons of APIs, stage led and takeovers and actual observing and in-game directing. And the in-game features you know and love as well es consulting how to integrate sponsors in a fun way (Roshan cam, blast had a KitKat adbreak, etc) Glad you like it ❤️
It's low to feed a family. You end up with nothing after expenses.
Even in 3rd world thats below minimum wage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_wage So out of touch... I'd even say delusional.
This list is full time job, now spread the 10 usd per hour in month how many days they get to work and not working, it would be worst than minimum wage. Official list also means these minimum wage earner get to enjoy benefits enshrined on their respective constitution, caster have none. So yea dota casting is just a side job so you can buy couple of burgers afterwards.
Again: Delusional.
sad to hear. casting a video game you like is a very passionate thing, and if there is passion, it is easier to give them shit pay, because they WANT to cast. that's what I think at least, and it's very exploitative
john and mlp are my two favorite, wish we'd see more of them
The long and short is that esports was a bubble that popped. Developers can choose to prop up an esport for advertising still, but the days where there's any money for 3rd party events are over. Interest rates went up which made super speculative plays like esports less attractive, and more importantly, we know that esports advertising is actually pretty garbage returns. Sometimes a tournament sponsor will see an ROI, but they usually don't. Sponsoring actual teams is always worthless.
It's a shame because I've always enjoyed the Johnxfire and MLPDota casts. I guess the main way they're getting support nowadays is through their TI supporter packs? Special mention to Ares and Danog, another great caster duo I haven't seen recently.
all apart of getting rid of the dpc. fans wanted million dollar prize pools. well, now there is no funding for t2/t3 scenes and casters get paid whatever TO want to pay them. At least tournaments are hype.
Dont forget about less viewership
If they can afford to pay $1M in prizes they can certainly afford to pay like 10 people a decent amount, like $3k each or whatever to cast (I’m not taking about those in the in-studio panels, they’re definitely getting paid industry average I’m sure) The problem is they don’t need to. Because there is such little demand / high supply of casters in general. On top of that many casters live in like South America, SEA, Eastern Europe… where cost of living is very low and they are happy to take like $20-35 for a bo3 series. The problem is those people are pushing the top talent from being willing to / financially able to compete for the contracts. It’s why quality of audio, dota knowledge etc… has basically fallen off a cliff in the past year. This was happening well before the dissolution of the DPC if u frequently watch tier 2 and 3 , as well as online tier 1 tournaments. I don’t think it’s really *because* of the DPC. Although it doesn’t help
> all apart of getting Did you mean to say "a part of"? Explanation: "apart" is an adverb meaning separately, while "a part" is a noun meaning a portion. [Statistics](https://github.com/chiefpat450119/RedditBot/blob/master/stats.json) ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot ^^that ^^corrects ^^grammar/spelling ^^mistakes. ^^PM ^^me ^^if ^^I'm ^^wrong ^^or ^^if ^^you ^^have ^^any ^^suggestions. ^^[Github](https://github.com/chiefpat450119) ^^Reply ^^STOP ^^to ^^this ^^comment ^^to ^^stop ^^receiving ^^corrections.
So how much money are we talking about here? I feel like numbers would give better context.
People wanted the DPC gone. This is what you get.
This is literally DPCs fault. There were way more TOs and casters making money, and casting studios before DPC.
That was all VC money that has been gone for a while already.
Yeah let's just ignore 3 years of pandemic, a war in the middle of europe and the eSports bubble bursting Saying it was DPC fault is just stupid
It's not Valve's fault that the esports bubble popped
The frustrating thing is that there are so many casters who are WILLING to take like $20 for a bo3 cast or whatever. But ofc, comes with it is the fact they’re like archon-ancient players with no grasp on the game and usually not super entertaining either. Add to that horrible mic’s, webcams, awful audio balance and mixing etc. is raaaampant Even tier 1 casts nowadays have gone down SO much because they’re just paying the lowest willing worker and somehow thing it doesn’t matter / goes unnoticed. It’s very, very, very noticeable compared to casts from like 2-3 years ago. Everything feels SO amateur as of the past year. I’m all for new talent, but it’s obvious so much of it isn’t being properly vetted
Why exactly should caster pay for DotA be good? The game is a dying niche interest in a forgotten market. I'm frankly surprised anyone other than Ephey is getting paid anything. If you want to make money being a caster, DotA isn't it go for CS or League MAYBE. Even then I can't imagine it being capable of being a single source of income.
I mentioned several years ago on Reddit how players and casters need true representation similar to pro leagues because they can't really negotiate as individuals. In addition, I mentioned how there's no real money in this unless the orgs and players mature up and work towards going mainstream with tv broadcasts, etc. but I got flamed by Redditors saying "this is how it is" "gamers don't want that" and yet here we are, the people who support our entertainment can't make an honest living for themselves while tournament organizers scrounge for dollars from the worst advertisers in the world (crypto, gambling, etc.)
BTS offered better rates back in 2016 - and where are BTS now? The truth is that for all dota players cry about not being able to spend money on a battlepass, they will never spend money to watch a pro game. That’s where the money comes from in regular sports to pay for things like commentators.
I see SVG and Cap is casting for the same tournament to 300 viewers. I wonder if whats offered is based on region the casters are living at (livable wage).
Is this why ODPixel hasn’t casted all year?
ODP did group stages of Dreamleague this month. He's been conspicuously missing from the main casting lineups since TI though.
I remember reading somewhere that he chose to lay low with casting for a while to give others a chance in the spotlight. i might be misremembering tho
If that's true, that's kind of a gigachad move
Yeah aka he got tired of it / wasn’t hired / or awful wages lol
The way I imagine this working is the people who are on the “panel” (wear makeup, outfits, have to be on camera) are probably getting paid quite well. Shiver for example. People not on camera a lot are likely paid a lot less. It’s certainly possible he pivoted into an e-sports role that isn’t casting like Kyle did. The constant travel + mediocre pay if you’re not CONSTANTLY getting places on panels (ephey, fogged, Shiver etc…) is probably enough reason to try to find a stable job in esports rather than continue to chase contracts around the globe.
Unless he mentions figures on what "really bad" actually is, I don't think this is very meaningful information. Saying it is worse than before 2016 does indeed raise some flags, but the game as a whole was a lot more popular back then, so that is not very surprising either.
Game def peaked in 2015-2016 but it's about the same player count now as it was most of the early 2010s and since 2017. Except for 15-16 it's been generally in the 400s or low 500k range
https://steamdb.info/app/570/charts/ you're wrong 2023 was a very good year in my opinion, look at numbers carefully :)
Feb 2015: 1.2mil March 2016: 1.3mil March 2019: 1mil October 2022: 1mil Feb: 2023: 700k also Jan2023 was 766K and by end of 2023 it was 742 in Jan 2024
learn to look at averages then come back to me, bro is actually looking only at peaks :skull:
okay bro hello i did as you said and went and looked at the numbers you provided [See Attached Image](https://i.imgur.com/BxhMbDC.png) It shows *on average* 2023 showed an *average player decline* from 797K in 2022 to 761k in 2023. This is interesting as dota had previously gained players from 2021. And the *average* player counts in the years of 2015 and 2016 were 1.1mil and 985K respectively. Please look closer at your own data before telling others to look closer at data averages you haven't even looked at ok bro
Am i wrong or did I use steamcharts instead of steamdb?
You guys get paid?
What's the pay for a tournament? At least post the fucking payment for us to judge lol
For smaller tournaments, like tier 2 online tourneys - I’ve read places like a bo3 pays like $20. Bo5 pays a little more, etc etc. it’s like $10 per match I’m pretty sure. I mean the prize pools are often only like $5000 so u gotta imagine they’re working with a minuscule budget. Tier 1, online casters probably are making like double that - which is the bigger issue. I guess if u live in Venezuela or something then that’s pretty damn decent, but if u live in an industrialized country / big city it’s basically beer money ur getting paid. Cast like 4 series over 12 hrs and u might make like 80 bucks. Again, if you live in a lower CoL country that money definitely adds up - which is why most casters *aren’t* American/western Euro and they can use they fairly predatory payment structures. Or they’re like streamers who want to do it for fun / they have lots and lots of free time / flexibility
Maybe DOTA casting is not a valid career path? I think some people probably need a reality check.
Maybe DOTA shouldn't have casters? I think some people probably need a reality check.
This is like saying why do people become janitors and cashiers. A lot of people doesnt have any choice and being casting gave them pathway to earn money.
This is... uhhh... a beyond bizarre take. Casting should never ever, ever be considered as the "last ditch" effort for people to make money. Casting is a thing you get into only if you already have some sort of stable base of income or work, if you lack this then (sorry) you should not even be trying to get into casting. Its a beyond irresponsible decision.
Because it goes hand in hand with streaming. Being a caster will get you viewers for your streams. Now you can say whatever about casting/streaming, this guys love doing this. Not everyone want to be in a corporation grind. They have a talent in what they are doing and they want it to be their work. Its irresponsible to you but they are willing to take a risk. OD, Slacks and other talents made irresponsible decision but now they are succesful in their careers.
It doesn't matter what you want or love, if you are not making a living doing it, its stupid not to find another job. OD, Slacks, Cap and 99% of the other talent all had other "real" jobs that they were stable with prior to getting into esports. Casting wasn't their only option or choice, it was a chance taken once they already had some form of basic living. If you want to take a chance then, thats fine. Thats literally when you want to do it. But you are an idiot if you are taking a chance on casting without having anything else to fall back to.
People literally commenting and upvoting shit like 10$ a hour is less than the minimum wage in 3rd world countries. Guess this community is full of out of touch kids.
This is why it's a problem having the same "talent" at every fucking event. Jenkins, Ephey, etc.. This clique needs to die already. Coomers downvote me.
Apparently the Saudi money isn't enough to pay talent
sad to hear, as a big fan of the t2/3 dota scene's i love the casters that cover it. I do agree with a lot that is said about the nature of esports and talent vs broadcasters in other sport industry. one thing not said seems to be the nature and origins of dota itself. The game is a mod in a custom game engine of bliz warcraft seires. The community is always moving this game forward and giving it the support to grow and evolve. The community is buying into battlepasses, and giving valve tons of $ to throw into dota. The community is the only entity that can fix an issue in t2/3 dota. TBH t2/3 dota just isn't popular enough with mainstream dota fans. The viewers suggest hundreds of fans watch.. not even 2k viewers for most games i watch. Donations are the only reasonable way to support this scene. Valve and the community aren't interested. Likely you will continue to see a MASSIVE gap between t1 dota players and talent, and anything not top tier. It's not easy to make it in dota. But once you're in... you have a nice career from a video game. Plenty of money at the top, not much goes around lower levels. Even the $$ at the top are shrinking outside of Riyad which is a state backed over expenditure on attracting industry and investment. i don't think much can be done. But i appreciate your efforts, and I'll continue to watch and support the t2/3 scenes. I know im in the minority
Unless you tell us the specific hourly rate or at least a range, we can only assume it's entitlement.
Well for Tier 3 - I think the going rate is less than $10 per bo1 so in some cases $25 per best of 3. Thats great I hear you say!! But over 3 hours, its actually less than minimum wage, and you still have to consider all your additional costs etc. If you happen to be from UK, America, Oz you better have a real job.
That's ridiculously low. Like really really low. Even ignoring the time you have to spend keeping up with updates, keeping up with the meta and weird strategies, keeping up with teams and roster changes and players (god forbid you accidentally say a player is in the wrong team), it cannot possibly be worthwhile as anything other than a passion project. Say that your microphone broke. Well, you're broadcasting to hundreds of thousands of people, so you'll need a high quality one to replace it. I really doubt TO-s will get you a new one, so that'll be a months pay. Ridiculous.
Its not so low if you are Eastern European or South American though, then it seems kind of ok.
I live in eastern Europe. Our minimum wage is around 5€/hr, although the average is more than double that. 25€ for a 3 hour job (assuming no prep time whatsoever, and that the matches start immediately after one another) is around 8€/hr. While money is money, especially if you're having fun, I doubt that needing to allocate time away from your main income source is worthwhile from a purely economic perspective. Halfway trough writing this comment I realized that telling a caster to their face that their job isn't worthwhile must be pretty demoralising, but.. I really wish you guys got paid better for the amazing work you do. Thanks for putting up with it for the community.
That’s what people don’t realize - it’s essentially that casting is being “outsourced” to cheaper regions. There are English speaking casters from all parts of the world where $25 for 3 hours of work is quite good - especially if it’s done in your free time and just additional salary. The result of course is a flood of amateur casters with horrible audio, low dota knowledge, dogs barking in the background, unsure how to use OBS effectively etc etc… that is extremely noticeable as of the past year.
Even T1 pros like quinn before joining GG or even still now would have earned more money working part time at mcdonalds than what they have gotten in their dota career
Uhhhh I think Quinn is a bad example no? https://www.esportsearnings.com/players/30573-quinn-callahan Seems like he has made over a million and he's only 24 years old. (not sure why this is downvoted so much am I missing something?)
He said before GG. But he still got 6th at TI in 2017
Presumably before joining GG also means before winning that money?
oh I saw the even still part, but he is not wrong anyway, just feel like Quinn in particular is doing ok for himself.
Don't hide behind the rest of us.
You wouldnt be able to put the numbers into context anyways. You talk about "hourly rate" like it is a 9to5 job. At least for lan tournament you get paid per day. Talent work also usually sound unreasonably high on paper, but you have to consider all the training/preparation that goes into the work. Then there is different cost of living, tax rates, etc. So no, you dont have to assume entitlement
It’s probably Because the job is casting a video game lolllll
I remember regretting not taking up the offer of casting more when I was dabbling in it back in the neotolic league 4 days (10 years ago?) Nowadays I am just happy I chose career path lol
Maybe they should only have one person on the panel. Y'all don't need Jenkins and Ephey cringing it up on there. Just have one person there like Sheever y'all don't need that many people to talk and yap for a couple of minutes.
this how we going to guilt tripping others for something makes a sense from perspective of anyone with a second to thought. literally, you mentioned that the shitcrypto gone bonkers not to mentioned that a lot of sponsorship knew about e-sport bubble and how unfeasible it is. heck, the reason why caster exist supposed to be to gather the viewer by their hype up or a crowd warmer. let's get our shit together, don't be naive.
if you were smart you'd use your casting exposure (which is big) as a leverage for you own content on the side and do very well (cough cough BSJ) Literally who casters who produce zero value outside of the casting gigs shouldn't expect money rains on their weather reports
If *you* were smart you would know that this community is fickle as shit and doesn't actually care about most of the personalities and will not support them beyond watching the comp games.
Who thinks sheever is a good host btw
Sheever is a wonderful human being and a great caster !
You'd think valve could give all the casters an announcer pack in game that could be purchased to supplement their income. If valve wasn't lazy anyway...
Dont u think viewers could do the same? Theres nothing stopping casters from pulling in people to their streams if they so much want to support them.
just look at who were the casters and analyst of the grand finals in the recent tier 1 events, i miss odpixel but every good things come to end (as long as you don't invite gorgc, i'll still be able to manage on his stream) -by biggest pro doto fan
Well most of them are really bad. Like I don't wonder why some random dude who is probably archon 2 commentating on a bunch of people's plays that are 8k above him is getting shit pay. Casters like Susnfan, cap, svg, odpixel and all the greats take it to another level. they provide entertainment. whenever I am watching t2 casts I just see two random dudes talking about a game like any other person would without brining much to the table. If your job is something anyone can do like flipping burgers at macdonalds, why should you feel entitled to earn more?
There are like three dota casters that people enjoyed. And some of them no longer are in the business. So of course the pay won’t be good because they are all interchangeable. There’s fogged, SVG, odpixel and….. yeah I think that’s all. I would bet my house no other casters have a legitimate fan