Multiplayer online battle arena game Smite launched in March this year after a two year-long beta period. Highly competitive in nature, the game pits two teams of players against each other in a bid to destroy the opposing team's base. Each player controls a chosen god, goddess, or deity from a particular pantheon that possesses unique skills to help achieve this goal. Unlike other games in the MOBA genre, Smite is played from a third-person perspective, with players using WASD to move their character around.

Since launch, Smite has amassed a dedicated player base that has supported a competitive multiplayer scene, the likes of which has led to the creation of the Smite World Championship event which takes place this weekend. Hosted at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta, the competitive event currently sports a prize pool of $2.5 million, making it one of only three game franchises to breach the $2 million prize pool figure in esports--the other two are Dota 2 and League of Legends. I sat down with Hi-Rez Studios co-founder and chief operations officer Todd Harris to talk about the growth of Smite, how the studio tackles religious themes, and the game's future as a competitive title.

Growth of an esport

Smite wasn't built with the intention of becoming an esport. According to Harris, it was only after initial test runs proved successful that the studio was convinced to run competitive events for the game.

"Early on we started running tournaments every Saturday and every Sunday in beta to see if there was an appetite for competitive play, and we were pleased to see that players showed up and teams showed up. Then sponsors started to get involved, and at this point we've got many of the names that are known to compete in various esports participating. For example, Dignitas, Team Solo Mid, SK Gaming."

The Smite World Championship marks the first event of its kind for Hi-Rez studio. At present, the total prize pool sits at $2,596,143. Half of that will go to the team who takes first place, with second and third place awarded twenty and fifteen percent of the total prize pool respectively. Teams placing fourth to eight each earn smaller cuts of the pool.

Harris described the milestone as "super encouraging" given how young the game is.

"We hope to build on that, and as we head into season two, add even more regions over the world because we think that the gameplay and the theme of mythology really makes Smite interesting to a worldwide audience," he said.

For the first season, Hi-Rez had put together a tournament structure that allowed regions with official server coverage able to put forward qualifying teams. But how does the developer decide which regions get local server coverage, and which don't?

"We generally look at it at a market-by-market approach. We want to make sure we've got servers as well as the right amount of community support in that area." He referred to the launch of Oceanic servers in October last year as an example where a "really vocal and passionate community in Australia" convinced the studio that there was a demand for local Smite servers.

Handling religious themes

Hi-Rez Studios has encountered controversy in the past resulting from the game's depiction of Hindu figures in combat. Their appearances prompted the president of the Universal Society of Hinduism to request their removal from the game, as he said putting the deities under player control trivialised them.

When asked about how Hi-Rez approaches the sensitivity surrounding depicting religious figures in-game, Harris said, "The teams are always balancing trying to be representative and authentic with the depiction of the god while also realising we're not really a game about religion, we are an entertainment product."

"It is a careful balance. In the case of Hinduism, that's the one pantheon we have that has over a billion people actively worshipping it and of course it's a very diverse group of people, so there's all sorts of viewpoints around what the right representation of a deity might be. In Smite we just take the position that we're representing the deities that make sense within the Smite universe… in that particular case, we actually worked with some Hindu groups to look at it from a lore perspective, because we do present text lore within the game, and get their feedback so that it is in the right neighbourhood of at least their interpretation of Hinduism."

To Xbox One and beyond

At last year's Gamescom Microsoft showcased a Smite trailer for the Xbox One, the platform where the game will make its console debut. Traditionally, the MOBA genre has found little success outside of PC releases. Despite this, Harris is confident that Smite's transition to console will be a smooth one because of the nature of the game.

"When Microsoft made the statement, 'Finally, here is a MOBA that wants to be played on console' they were referring to Smite and the fact that the camera angle and controls are different to the traditional MOBA. Many of the 2D isometric MOBAs have a more challenging time translating the control scheme to a controller. With Smite it is very natural. In fact, right now with the PC version we do support plugin of a controller, and we have quite a few players who prefer that and already find it a comfortable experience," he explained.

I noticed that Harris let slip the plural of console providers--did that mean we could see Smite on PS4 sometime soon?

"So at this point we've announced that Smite is coming first to Xbox One, but certainly after that we'll be considering other consoles," Harris answered. I asked whether this would include the Wii U, which he replied "most likely not."

The Smite World Championship takes place this weekend, with the first match starting on Friday January 9 at 11am EST. The event will culminate with a final on January 11 to determine which winning team will walk away with over a million dollars.