Dendi is one of the stars of the Dota 2 professional scene, best known for his creativity and unwillingness to conform to a traditional style of play, but how much has the Ukrainian gamer earned from his time in esports?
After bouncing back and forth between Ks.int and DTS for a number of years, Dendi found his place at Natus Vincere, where he helped to establish the side as one of the best in the professional scene and himself as one of the world’s best players.
Na’Vi’s period of dominance started with a huge victory at The International 2011, the highest-paying tournament in esports, followed by back-to-back second place finishes in 2012 and 2013.
The trophies came thick and fast for the organisation in those years. While Na’Vi has since fallen down the pack and lost its place as a tier-1 team, with just two tournament victories since 2014, Dendi has maintained his place among the best.
With salaries in esports constantly increasing, players like Dendi now make a decent living from video games, but just how much has the Dota 2 star made so far?
How much does Dendi earn?
According to Anton Cherepennikov, CEO of leading Dota 2 side Virtus.pro, the best players now earn upwards of €20,000 a month for competing on the professional stage.
Speaking to Russian publication RNS in January 2017, Cherepennikov said:
“If three years ago you could give a good player a salary of $3,000, and you would get almost the best, now fixed wages reach €15,000 to €20,000 a month,
If we talk about superstars, that is, they have a salary of more than €20,000 a month, and contracts with them are multi-annual.”
Cherepennikov’s claim cannot be taken as fact, as he can only speak for his own organisation, but it gives some idea of the amounts that Dota 2 organisations are willing to spend.
If correct, Dendi is probably earning a monthly figure nearer to the top end of that estimate as one of Natus Vincere’s veteran players.
If we go with the €20,000 figure, that equates to €240,000 ($280,000) a year for the player.
Extra earnings
That alone is a lucrative wage, even for the very best of pro gamers. However, Dendi’s earnings are topped up by tournament winnings, sponsorship deals, streaming revenue and merchandise sales.
According to Esports Earnings. Dendi has won $791,000 in tournament prize money since he went pro. That equates to around $8,100 for each of the 97 tournaments that he has featured in, or $79,000 per year.
His most lucrative year came in 2014. Despite struggling to see Natus Vincere through to the later stages of The International, Dendi took home $168,000 in tournament winnings throughout the year.
It’s more difficult to put an estimate on Dendi’s streaming earnings.
It isn’t uncommon to see the best players bragging of earning upwards of $10,000 a month through video game streaming platforms like Twitch. However, achieving this amount relies largely on donations from viewers. Yet, for whatever reason, Dendi has disabled donations on his account. This means that he relies solely on advertising revenue which means his earnings from streaming are quite a bit lower.
According to social media tracking tool SocialBlade, Dendi has received 51.5m views on Twitch since he started streaming. With the platform paying between $2-$10 per 1,000 ad views, Dendi’s total Twitch earnings are likely somewhere between $103,000 and $515,000.
Dendi net worth
It’s impossible to say exactly how much Dendi is worth without knowing exactly how much Natus Vincere have been paying him over the years.
However, the figures below provide some idea of the current Dendi net worth and how much he has earned throughout his professional gaming career.
If Dendi is earning $280,000 a year, up from around $3,500 a month before 2015, his total salary earnings from Dota 2 adds up to around $1.05m. Throw in the $790,000 that Dendi has won in tournament prize money and the total comes to around $1.85m.
Streaming and merchandise sales likely added a fair bit more to the total.
While we cannot say exactly how much the player has made from his time playing Dota 2 professionally, Final Kill estimates the Dendi net worth at around $2m.
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