SMITE reorganizing e-sports payouts after handful of teams score 90% of prize pools

SMITE’s e-sports scene had a great year in 2014, although Hi-Rez identified one significant problem with how it’s been handling the game’s crowdfunded prize pool. The issue was that only a small number of winning teams were walking away with over 90% of the entire pool in Season 1, in some cases making more than actual Superbowl victors.

As the MOBA goes forward with its new season, Hi-Rez vowed that it will be spreading out the prize pool to more players and teams. For starters, SMITE’s World Championship will be capped at a $1M pool, and the studio said that it will hold additional tournaments to give more pro league teams a shot at winning prize money.

“Overall, we expect the e-sports prizing for the next year to surpass that from the past year,” Hi-Rez posted. “We simply want to spread that prizing out more evenly across more events and more teams.”