Smite players on PC and Xbox One will have chance to win some money — big money — next year.
Developer Hi-Rez Studios announced today that the World Championships for the second season of its multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) take place in January. The event includes tournaments for both the PC and the Xbox One versions, which is in beta. The PC championship has a prize pool of $1 million, while the Xbox One pool is $150,000.
That $1 million is actually smaller than the previous Smite World Championship’s, which used crowdfunding to raise a prize pool of $2,612,260. Hi-Rez says that it capped the money this year in an effort to distribute winnings to a greater number of players throughout the entire season.
MOBAs are a big deal in gaming right now. Smite has found itself a nice place in the No. 3 spot, behind League of Legends (the MOBA king) and Dota 2. League of Legends also caps the winnings for its world championships at around $2 million. Dota uses crowdfunding for its tournament, resulting in massive prize pools. The current amount for next month’s Dota 2 championships is at an astounding $16,473,634.
Still, crowdfunding that money can have its disadvantages, which we detailed last year. Notable, while Dota 2 is increasing in popularity every year right now, at some point it’ll lose players and that prize pool will decrease and become a very public indicator of the MOBA’s decline. League of Legends developer Riot Games also referred to crowdfunding prize pools as a form of begging.