Just days after the completion of The International - the biggest e-sports tournament to date, offering a staggering $1,600,000 prize purse - Valve Project Manager Erik Johnson has revealed plans to host more.

In an interview with dealspwn.com he stated Valve's intent to keep the competitive element of their game thriving, by hosting one major event per year, similar to that which has just finished. He also revealed that there are a large number of tournament organisers eager to get onto the DotA bandwagon and itching to begin hosting events of their own, he said:

Yeah. So, we want to do an event like this once a year and want to get the best in the world together in one place. And give something pretty entertaining for our fans to watch! There's also a huge group of DotA tournament organisers who are going to run events of their own throughout the year.

At first it was unclear whether future events would be of the same magnitude as The International, which will go down in history as the biggest single e-sports tournament to date. Things have since been made clear by the lead developer of the game, IceFrog, on the playdota forums. He said that future tournaments hosted by Valve will feature a prize pool "at least as big as the current prize pool".

Good news then for DotA fans after a hugely exciting first event, with both League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth making inroads on the genre it's vital that the game shows it has some staying power.