Scalping of DoTA 2 The International 11 tournament tickets

Note: As this is a very recent incident, there is still ongoing news development on it as of the creation of this article. 1="Nobody likes scalpers. They're the parasitic, dried-up pieces of excrement on the arsehole hairs of gaming, ruining an already expensive hobby for us gamers."

- Larry Bundy Jr. perfectly summarising what's wrong with scalping in his video on scalpers getting instant karma
 * -|2="I didn't get tickets to TI. Like many of you posting here, I couldn't get tickets to TI. I woke up really early, opened up the TicketMaster website first thing and got into the queue. Made myself some coffee while I waited. So damn excited. I was sure I'd be able to get them because I had heard good things about the queue system last time and how it was designed to be fair. When it's my turn, the page opens up and I see the first four days are already sold out. No problem, I'd be happy to get tickets just to the finals only. I click to pick my seat and just in that little time, those are sold out as well. I can't believe it.  I was willing to put in the $850~ for all 6 days of the event. That is not a small amount of money for me. In fact, it's almost equal to my one month's salary. Add the cost of plane tickets and staying there for almost 2 weeks, that comes out to more than double that. So even though it's a lot, I had saved up because it would have been my first TI.  I'd been struggling financially for the last several years, so not like I ever had the chance to go to a TI in an EU country before. But now that TI is taking place in a SEA country, and I'm doing better money-wise, I had the courage to dream. I had a dream, and it was crushed within minutes.  Sorry to sound so melodramatic, but this was a big deal to me. I've only travelled outside my country once before, and this would have been my first time travelling solo. Dota 2 is such a big part of my life, and going to TI is top of my bucket list.  Guess it's staying on that list for a bit longer."

- u/AnomaLuna, a DoTA fan on Reddit, recounting her awful experience attempting to and eventually failing to get tickets to the event thanks to scalpers

On May 22, 2022, Valve Software, the developer and publisher of DoTA 2, announced that Singapore will play host to the game's annual world championship tournament, The International 11 (TI11), in a video teaser on Twitter before revealing it to be held from October 20 to 30, 2022.

However, less than an hour after ticket sales for the event went live on August 13, 2022, all tickets were apparently sold out, causing some angry fans to pin the blame on scalpers.

Overview of event
On May 22, 2022, Valve Software, the developer and publisher of DoTA 2, announced that Singapore will play host to the game's annual world championship tournament, The International 11 (TI11), in a video teaser on Twitter. 11 days later on June 2, 2022, Valve announced on Twitter and the game's official website that the event will be held on October 20 to 30, 2022, with the world's top 16 Dota 2 e-sports teams competing in several playoff rounds before advancing to the finals, which will be held at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

Almost 2 months later on August 13, 2022, sales of the tickets go live through Singaporean ticket reseller TicketMaster, costing S$88 (US$64.02) for a single day of the Playoff Rounds at the Suntec Convention Centre while tickets for the Grand Finals at the stadium cost S$498 (US$362.33) for two days. A maximum of 5 tickets can only be purchased per person for the event.

However, less than an hour after ticket sales went live, all ticket sales were apparently sold out, angering fans and causing them to openly blame scalpers for stealing the tickets from legitimate buyers.

Ticket scalping
Less than 24 hours after ticket sales went live, scalpers began hawking the same tickets at exorbitantly marked-up prices on online shopping platforms like Carousell.

One scalper going by the name of taring666 on Carousell has listed 2 tickets for the Grand Finals at S$5500 (US$4001.70) each, which is 11 times the actual cost of the tickets on TicketMaster.

Another scalper going by the name of retailorresell on Carousell claimed that he managed to snap up 60 Grand Finals tickets and is reselling them for S$1700 (US$1236.64) each.

Aftermath
On the same day that all of the tickets were sold out and not replenished, numerous DoTA 2 fans immediately expressed their disappointment at Valve for the speed of the sellout and their failure for stopping the scalpers.

Some DoTA 2 Redditors have stated that they had been saving up for a long time and bought plane tickets to Singapore just to attend the event, only for them to be unable to refund said tickets due to the event's speedy sellout.

Nearly 2 days later, TicketMaster issued a press statement stating that they had done everything they can to give "the best possible and fairest experience for fans" by mandating unique mobile numbers and emails for account passwords and one-time password and CAPTCHA verifications to prevent scalping bots from mass-buying the tickets. However, many Singaporean DoTA fans felt that it wasn't enough and that more could be done.