How Smite esports helps keep 30 million players engaged with the game

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
October 11, 2019
Updated June 20, 2025
13 min

Building up the esports infrastructure for Smite’s esports community has been a lot of work. Over six years, the community of players has grown to nearly 30 million.

Todd Harris, cofounder of Hi-Rez Studios in Atlanta, said in a fireside chat with me at the Esports BAR Miami event last week that the company has laboriously built an ecosystem for the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game that makes it similar to one of the smaller traditional sports, like golf, which attracts a rich demographic despite is smaller size.

Unlock premium content and VIP community perks with GB M A X! Join now to enjoy our free and premium perks.

Join now →

Sign in to your account.

Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.