Over on the Dota 2 blog, Valve have announced that tickets to the second annual International, will go on sale from tomorrow at 9am PDT (5pm BST), and be on a purely first come-first serve basis. Selling at $49.99, they become an object that hangs out in your Steam inventory, schmoozing in the corner while all your little TF2 items start to look a little uncool. You can trade it, admire it, brag about it, but once you use it it’ll be tied to your account, and it’s you that’s going to be showing up in Seattle in August to see the best Dota 2 players in the world play the best Dota 2 players in the world.
Having them tradeable is an interesting move from Valve, as it means that there’s going to be a thriving black market in tickets, presumably with people buying up multiple tickets so that they can extort all the rarest items out of the most ardent fans. Or maybe they’re just trying to establish a baseline economy that isn’t based on Bill’s Hat from L4D.
There will also be limited seating for PAX Prime pass holders, but if you want sure fire access to all three days of the tournament, then the International ticket is the way to go. So long as you’ve got $50 sitting around spare, or an Unusual Courier, or lots and lots of Juggernaut items. And I mean lots.