The Official SMITE Magazine eSports Edition | Page 44

were still running these weekly
tournaments with very minimal
production. In fact, Bart and Lionheart
used to cast games from their
bedrooms. Fast forward to now,
we have a full studio with plenty of
lighting and a full production behind
the scenes. Along with that, we’ve
had more LANs this year than we
ever had in the past, with even bigger
prize pools. The biggest prize pool
last year I believe was $20,000. This
year, we had a launch tournament
that was worth over $200,000, four
$50,000 prize pools and an invitational
that had a prize pool of $35,000.
So I think it’s safe to say we’ve
come a long way and I don’t see our
momentum ending anytime soon.
How does the SWC differ
from the Launch Tournament
back in March 2014?
The SMITE Launch Tournament
was awesome. We had a great
venue filled up with hardcore SMITE
fans and eight teams from North
America and Europe. But the SMITE
World Championship will be bigger
and better from every front.
This event will have the best teams
from five different regions across the
world which are China, Brazil, Latin
America, North America and Europe.
The venue itself holds over three times
the amount of people than the SMITE
Launch Tournament did and there’s
no question whether this venue better.
The Cobb Energy Center is amazing
from the inside and out. I think this

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to reach at least 2 million dollars.
With that kind of money on the line,
this is something that’ll catch interest
in anyones eyes. These games will
be incredibly intense - especially
when it comes to the finals.
Lastly, the path teams needed
to get to this event was way more

I think it’s safe to say
we’ve come a long way and
I don’t see our momentum
ending anytime soon.
location alone will blow peoples minds.
Along with all of that, the prize pool
is something most games have never
seen. Currently we sit at a prize pool
of $1,750,000 and we anticipate that
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intense than what teams needed to
do in order to get invited to the SMITE
Launch Tournament. There were a
series of tournaments that teams
needed to dedicate their time to in

order to qualify for this big event. We
went through qualifiers, a league and
a LAN in order to pick the best teams
in North America and Europe. Now it’s
time to find out who is actually THE
BEST in the World. The best team will
walk away with the bragging rights
and 50% of the total prize pool.
As a follow-up, what are the
hurdles in organizing such a
high-profile tournament?
The logistics and hurdles to make
this event possible are never ending
it seems. One big one that we needed
to tackle many months is advance
was making sure players overseas
were able to obtain their passport
and visas in time for the event.
Working with other regions eSports
coordinators has been a daily process
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