Valve announces tickets for this year's installment in The International, their Dota 2 tournament are going on sale on Friday. The event will be held in Seattle, WA in mid-July, and here's the deal:

Tickets for The International Dota 2 Championship will go on sale this Friday, April 4 at 3 pm Pacific time via Ticketmaster.

The finals for this year's International will be held July 18th - 21st at the KeyArena in Seattle, WA. Four-day ticket prices are $99 for General Admission, $199 for Floor seating, and $499 for VIP level.

The International was first held three years ago in Cologne, Germany during Gamescom with 16 of the best Dota 2 teams in the world competing for a grand prize of $1 million.

In 2013 the prize pool was bolstered beyond Valve's contribution by Dota 2 player participation in the Interactive Compendium, driving the total prize pool to over $2.8 million, up from $1.6 million. This year's Compendium will be unveiled soon.

Held at Seattle's Benaroya Hall, the 2013 finals achieved peak simultaneous online viewership of over 1 million, plus international television broadcasts and Pubstomp viewing events held in over 40 countries worldwide.

Dota 2 is a free-to-play, online action strategy game created by Valve (Bellevue, WA based makers of multiple game franchises and the leading online distribution platform, Steam).

This year's tournament will again be broadcast worldwide, free of charge, with play-by-play commentary in multiple languages.