I think I prefer my books dead, on the whole - I'd rather not be chastised for my reading speed, or have to make small talk with a tome while I'm busy scanning its innards - but if Valve are backing them, I expect every book will be 'alive' by the end of the year. Ah - I have, of course, made a rather grievous error. 'Living' in the context of Dota 2's virtual International Interactive Compendium means 'you can click around in it to play games, vote in polls and generally interact with/support the MOBA's upcoming International tournament'. Sounds rather nifty. Sales of The Compendium - which will be added to the Dota Store later today - will also help increase the tourney's $1.6m prize pool, with 25% of all revenue generated by the book being thrown in the already morbidly obese kitty.
If you have a ticket to the international tournament, kindly Uncle Valve are going to give you the Compendium for free. Otherwise you'll have to fork out an unspecified amount - the holy book hasn't materialised in the store yet. Valve had this to say about the endeavour:
"Each year we spend some of the planning time for The International trying to figure out ways to improve the connection between fans and the players in the tournament. We know that the majority of our viewers will be watching the tournament unfold over the internet, so we'd like to make it easier for an online fan to dig deeper into the event, the teams, and the players.
"In addition to wanting more detail, we know fans also love to compete with each other at predicting tournament results. This year we're taking our first shot at addressing all of the these concepts, with an additional step that we hope will result in the tournament itself getting bigger and better as a direct result of fan enthusiasm."
As for The International tournament itself, well that takes place over five days, kicking off in Seattle on the 7th of August. You'll find more info here .
Thanks to Eurogamer .
