Valve started the prize pool for its big Dota 2 tournament The International 3 with a very respectable $1.6 million. But to make teams Dote like they've never Doted before, Valve's kicking in 25% of sales from its $10 collector's chart-ish-sort-of-thing The Compendium. It's selling like nobody's business so the pool has now passed a cool $2 million, and Valve has added more "stretch goal" bonuses for Compendium owners.

As I type these words into this box right here they keep coming as I press more keys help make it stop okay cool anyway back to the point, the total prize pool for The International 3 is $2,014,052 according to the in-game Compendium, so Valve has sold an impressive 165,620 of the things.

The International 3 will see Dota 2's 16 top teams fighting it out on August 7-11. 13 were invited, with the remaining 3 slots filled by qualifiers and a wild card. The qualifiers are going on at the moment, and you can watch them either in-game for free with the fancy spectator system, or in video through sites like JoinDota.

With The Compendium selling so well, it has blown past the initial bonus goals Valve set for sales milestones. Everyone who buys it now also gets a special HUD skin, more customization options for the exclusive TI3 courier, and an XP booster.

As more and more are sold, it'll also unlock a new taunt, let players vote on 8 players to compete in a championship, and offer a new cosmetic item. Should the pool hit $3.2 million, Valve will let people choose which DotA hero is next to come over from the original Warcraft III mod. No, voting for Goblin Techies is neither big nor funny, and it's certainly not clever.