LO3 - Magazine Article - Game developer interview

Answers by Todd Harris, Hi-Rez Studios COO

1.       How have your company raised money for tournament prize pools?

We have utilized crowd-sourcing and the sale of in-game virtual items to raise money for tournament prize pools.  So for a set of limited edition virtual game items we allocate a portion of the sale to E-sports prize pools.  Specifically, for the launch of SMITE in March 2014 our company put in $100,000 for a Launch Tournament prize pool.  And additional $100,000 was raised by the community buying in-game items.  For the Season One World Championship our company put in $600,000 for the prize pool.  The player community raised another $2,000,000!   

2.       How have you setup these tournaments and all organisation?

We have a dedicated staff of about 10 people who run the administration and production/broadcast of the tournaments.  E-sports tournaments require the same type of staff you would find for a traditional sporting event - people to draft & enforce/officiate the rules, commentators and analysts, people to produce and broadcast a show for online viewers, people to handle players and teams, and people to give great service to the fans who attend the live event.

3.       Why do you think E-sports and MOBA tournaments are so popular?

MOBA games are now the most popular game genre in the world in terms of player population.  So there are a large number of people who understand the game rules and this large population can appreciate when the game is being played at a very high skill level.  The top eSports events now draw viewership compatible or higher than traditional sporting events.

4.       How have your company become so well known in comparison to other MOBAS?

The gameplay within SMITE is different from other MOBAs because it is more action-based.  The player is directly controlling their character rather than clicking on the game map and aiming and dodging are more important. Beyond the gameplay, SMITE became well known because our first World Championship is already the 3rd largest eSport event in history based upon prize pool. Also SMITE will be the first major MOBA to come to a console when it releases on Xbox One in 2015.

5.       How have E-sports changed in the past few years?​

The biggest positive impact to E-Sports in the past few years is the emergence of live-streaming technology such as Twitch.TV.  This technology allows events to be broadcast over the internet to a worldwide audience with much lower production cost and zero distribution cost.  Twitch.TV now has 50 million unique users watching videogame content