Hi-Rez Studios has officially released it free-to-play MOBA SMITE to North America and Europe today, March 25. To celebrate the launch, Hi-Rez will be hosting a $200,000 Launch Tournament that will take place from this Friday, March 28, until Sunday, March 30.
The tournament itself will take place in Atlanta, Georgia in from of a live audience. Half of the prize money has been contributed by the community, based on sales from in-game purchases. The Launch Tournament will include the top four teams in Europe and the top four teams in North America, both teams of which have qualified from the SMITE Weekly Tournament Series that began earlier on this year, in January.
During its extended Open Beta phase, SMITE accumulated over 3 million registered players. According to an announcement email this author received, throughout SMITE’s lifetime the game’s playerbase has contributed 74,672,262 hours to the game, which is enough labour-hours to build 10 Empire State Buildings. There has also been 1.1 billion player kills and 13.5 billion minion kills, which – when combined – is twice the Earth’s population of seven billion. Minions have had their share, too; 23 million players have been killed by minions.
What’s more, more than 1000 human-years have been spent waiting to respawn, and the most played god in SMITE is Ra, who has appeared in 11 million matches and has spent enough time in the spotlight to last 481 human-years. Additionally, the most bought Beta skin to date is the Loki Infiltrator skin. Finally, the most played class in SMITE is Mage, with 34 percent; followed by Assassin, 22 percent; Hunter, 19 percent; Guardian, 15 percent; and Warrior, with 10 percent.
Source: Hi-Rez Studios Email Newsletter.