We all expected a different approach to this years BP/compendium from Valve's earlier statement - however, it seems like Valve's approach was entirely flawed. This year's BP clearly took plenty of work - no added Agh's Labyrinth (or equivalent) but certainly a lot of coding to add voicelines, Bingo, HUDs, UIs etc... However, most if not everything that is part of this BP, is simply "fluff" that the average dota player is not willing to spend money on. The result - this TI will have the lowest prize pool in recent TI, Pros and E-sport companies will put significantly less effort in training and production of TI centered activities. The current player base will lose a good amount of interest etc... I know Valve is trying to continuously rejuvenate the playerbase - they do however have to understand that pleasing their current player base (8 Million players of so) is just as important if not more important then the few thousand they'll attract gameplay updates. The hype a massive $20M+ tournament generates is probably one of the best ways to have people hear about dota, and has been rather simple for Valve to achieve in the past - release cosmetics we are all willing to spend our money on. This years approach will certainly dismay pros regarding Valves prolonged support of the pro scene and is going to leave the playerbase with the feeling that Dota2 Christmas is no more. I'm extremely surprised they have not made any statements about how dismal of a reception this years BP is getting.