What’s crazy is that Smite 1 was in a decent spot about 10 months ago. Then when Smite 2 was announced, they actually released some fun patches for Smite 1. It’s not like Smite was dog and everyone hated it and we needed to jump ship asap
Yes the game was in a good spot but no new players were coming in and the player base was slowly dwindling as time went on. Not to mention the game was quickly getting out of date since it was made on UE3.
@@25Alastor maybe, but Overwatch was an extremely popular game. It was the top multiplayer game before fortnite came and made battle royales the new norm. I just hope they can make Smite 2 hold it’s own for the next handful of years
Yeah then the company could be owned by the likes of Activision or Ubisoft. None of the big companies are good anymore. All their sequels in the past 5 years have been crap. I think Capcom is the only company not struggling.
as an overwatch fan, you really dont want that. gaming is so bad rn, dev teams are being destroyed by incompetent and out of touch CEOs. Only to be bought by another incompetent CEO. Running theme here is usually its a CEO who has ABSOLUTELY no experience in gaming. Or no knowledge in gaming culture. And it kills them everytime. You wanna know why Nintendo has lasted as long as they have? They understand what makes a game fun.
This dude is saying 'I take accountability' but if he's still the CEO and not just removing that part from his Twitter bio, then he isn't taking accountability for shit. Hirez needs to oust this guy, you should not be allowed to continuously burn money like they do on countless projects, and take their cash cow out back and put it down.
I worked in the video game industry as a 3D character artist for a few years and I even met people who worked at Sony and other big companies. What happens is the decision to push or drop projects is done by Project Managers and Game directors. Usually projects fail or not because either they don't know what they are doing, the production takes too long to go back and forth between feedback. Higher ups have unrealistic deadlines and when not met with that demand. The company doesn't get investments and they start cutting budget. They hire a bunch of outside talent to do quick work, which may or may not bug the game or decrease the quality of the work. You will see this with all the AAA games nowadays. Black Myth is prime example of what every company should be doing. The blame is put on artists, HR, "non-essential" roles, which are cut because they are more and it helps the budget. Where most of the problem has to do with the Managers and the higher up decision. It is obvious that the company doesn't know how to put their money, and how to set realistic goals. Just because Riot can throw content every month doesn't mean they have to as well. This shows to you that no creatives are indispensable. There are layoffs in every AAA company all the time, because of how competitive it is. Which is why I no longer work in the video game industry.
I love that the streamers are finally getting to the point where theyre willing to acknowledge the short comings of the game with out hiding behind the word alpha. A little late tho
That's not a sustainable option. It sounds nice but wouldn't make any difference. You're right that he really isn't actually taking accountability though. No point in saying it if you're not gonna do anything.
@chillpengeru it's very sustainable. But just not for the entirety of the people fired. If he takes a pay cut then they can keep a few extra people. Even if it's 1 persons worth, then that's more than most CEO's
@@memphisacosta2145 the game and company are in crisis mode and need to be able to survive. Cutting the ceo's pay to keep one, maybe two art designers on isn't going to increase revenue, and if they can't survive long enough to get smite 2 in a good, profitable state, then no one's going to get paid because they'll be done for. We don't know what the numbers are, as far as what he gets paid or what cash reserves the company has. Maybe they're fine for quite a while, I just find it hard to believe cutting one guy's pay (assuming he's not rakin in over a million, which I really doubt he is) is going to help sustain the company. It sucks but it's business, sometimes employees that aren't critical have to be laid off in down turns. The art department at hi rez was seriously amazing so I'm sure they'll land on their feet and maybe even get a higher salary elsewhere. Still sucks though for the long-time guys.
not defending him but he did in fact take a pay cut, he just wasnt being payed as much as big company CEOs so it didn’t do enough. its significant when the CEO of nintendo takes a pay cut, but hi rez is a much smaller company
Honestly you're 10000% correct. We wouldn't be here if he kept Smite 1 alive and chugging along for another year. While developing Smite 2 behind the scenes and getting all that "Knowledge" he talks about. If you want a better job, you keep your current job while looking for a better job. You don't quit your job lose money while you try to find the better one.
As a smite casual player of 8+ years I find myself playing other gamers more then ever before and I don’t say this to shame just to share my experience
I’ve been playing smite for about 10 years and same I don’t play it as often as I used to… other games caught my interest and the fact that the same gods get skins I get annoyed gods I enjoy never do
I haven’t played smite since 2018-19. I have a culminated 1300hrs. I’ve well put over 500 bucks into the game. I had my fill loved my experience but yeah I’m done with it. I think MOBAs in general are a dying breed
I personally just love when you go off on a topic for a video. As long as its an interesting topic, imma watch. Listening to the conversation you had on buisness and all that stuff was interesting.
@@Weak3nyou know a good amount about business (which is a given lul) but its interesting to hear. My family owns a business so I everything you say genuinely clicks and falls in line with how my dad talks about stuff.
If HiRez had simply ran Smite1 into the abyss with no Smite2, this probably wouldn't happen until years from now. It's honestly baffling how badly the higher ups have messed things up
He mentioned the developer team still being big so people don't think Smite 2 will take forever. Even though they have 80 characters fleshed out and game mode ideas ready to go, they are probably working so many hours, and morale so low from layoffs, that I'm really interested to see what happens to the game. I want them to succeed, though.
Stew honestly should have stepped aside years ago. He consistently makes changes that hurt his own company. Also this comment isn’t a result of the recent firings I’ve held this opinion since Realm Royale. Also not s result of the tournament that’s actually a reasonable choice
It's crazy because Hirez' game launches always have a crazy response. I remember when Paladins, Realm Royale and Rogue Company came out. There were so many people checking out the games, but somehow, a couple of patches would go by and all of a sudden they dropped the worst patch in history to instantly kill the game. Paladins died due to OB 64, Rogue died because it tried to be a competitive game when there were already plenty of esports at the time, and realm royale failed due yo it being unpolished and getting a terrible patch 😕 it's tough
Haven’t played smite in around 6 months, and it’s been about a year and half since I played more than like an hour. This drama brought me back because it’s all kind of insane. Appreciate your coverage on the topic, you seem to be the most informed person I’ve come across. Another person commented that you should get one of the laid-off devs on a call and get their perspective, and I agree. That’d be awesome for the channel and the community. Glad to see you’re still doing well despite playerbase decreases! Cheers brother
Notice how the CEO didnt take a pay cut instead of laying off OGs (says he did but like Weak3n said probably made it back with bonuses)... Dudes a huge loser.
bro you realize that for the CEO to say im getting a paycut and then they wouldn't have to fire people the the CEO's salary would have to be along the lines of literal 10-15 times the salary of an employee ? in the average company that isn't SUPER rich the gap is like 5 employes with the minimum salary get more than what the ceo gets in a month lmao
I feel that most streamers and content creators don’t say what needs to be said whether it’s because they don’t want to be mean or just don’t want to confront people. I respect that you are calling out the CEO and questioning why he is still there. Leadership needs to change, or I believe smite and smite 2 will both be dead very soon
Hi Rez has done a horrible job with Smite this year. Smite 2 was not ready for a public release. Smite 2 only had a small dev team during 2023. They basically created a proof of concept, then announced it and made it available to the public after 8 months of more serious development. It is insane how hi rez thought that would be ok. Also killing the Smite 1 pro league to do tournaments for Smite 2 is an absolutly obsurd decision. Smite 2 is no where near ready for serious competitive play. Smite 2 has to catch up to Smite 1 before it can be considered a replacement for it. At the rate they are adding gods to Smite 2 it will take over 3 years before all current Smite 1 gods are in Smite 2. It is also hard to ignore how Valve has done a much better job with early playtest for Deadlock.
Whgo ever thought that that releasing a ALPHA for the sequal of the game and making it 30 bucks it wasn't going to get big they should've let it cook and release a new god once a year and just slowly make smite 2 then replace smite 1 likw o2 and cs2 did
I have pretty much accepted this as the death of smite at this point, i am trying not to think too much about it as this game even with all its flaws is very important to me but i dont see smite 2 being what it should be and i dont think it can save smite or hirez. I hope i am wrong
Agree with you on everything aside from 4:06 paladins , when it got popular , was more popular than smite ever was , it was making alot more money than smite it wasnt even comparable , that in itself was what got them to overspend and run out of budget at one point leading to the shutdown of its esports scene .....
I don't understand why this guy is a CEO. Literally ran several great games into the ground again and again and again and he still hasn't learned his lesson. Smite 2 could've been an amazing return to form with Hi Rez. However, if thus dude is at the helm that'll never happen because it seems to me that his pride and his "vision" is worth more than actual money, the community built off Smite, the SPL, the creative team, etc etc. Why couldn't Hi Rez get someone like Harada, Sakurai, or Gaben at the helm?
Running a Tournament for a clearly unfinished game with a heap of bugs that impose the competitive integrity is beyond insanity. Laying off so many people who built what smite is... Past failures with multiple different Hirez titles, the issue is clearly at the top, but at the same time its pretty much too late to address that- there is no clear direction. Smite 2 is do or die for the company now. They either kick things into gear or the game simply dies along with the company. It seriously sucks because there is alot of peoples jobs and careers at stake here, and the game has potential that will never see the light of day with Stewarts leadership. This ship is sinking fast and deadlock is the lifeboat.
I was doing a bit of research and discovered that Epic was helping companies port their games to unreal 5 if they happened to be on past versions of unreal. I’m not an expert on this topic but doesn’t that mean it’s technically possible for Hi-Rez to have copy/pasted Smite 1 into unreal 5? I understand that there would be numerous issues with doing that but it seems like that would’ve been the easier option than recreating the entire game from the ground up. Players wouldn’t lose the stuff they paid for and every god would be in the game. Every Character model has been upgraded before, why couldn’t they do it again with stuff like cloth physics, etc? Instead, Hi-Rez has probably killed both Smite 1 and 2, along with the company. All for a quick cash grab on that Smite 2 name.
That's crazy if true. They could've kept running smite as usual for another year while porting it in the background, and got all the benefits of the new engine. Maybe the crazy spaghetti code made that unfeasible though, who knows.
Maybe, we dont know. Theres some unknown variables to account for. Like, does HiRez have Epic contacts? What would negotiations look like? How easy/hard would it be? How much time or cost would it take?
@@cybzer0560 I’m sure they do because Smite 1 is on Unreal 3, which is made by epic. If smite is making money, you know epic is getting a percentage of that.
"We Need This Much Money To Create This Game" "We Have The Money Just Use It To Pay The Devs And Don't Worry Once Smite 2 Launches And We Become Billionaires We can hire People Again" - Stew Maybe
Personally, it feels "alpha" has been understood by the management as a test phase and a cash grab expecting more people to buy founder's editions and play the game without committing to frequent and important updates/fixes. Instead, everything just hangs out there with no clear direction until whatever's going on with outsourcing is done for the F2P release. I'm not expecting good changes in the development direction until 2025, apart from maybe getting more frequent god port releases that have not had major changes (Kali, Herc, etc.). 100% agreed on almost all of your takes in this vid. Yes, I watched the entire damn thing lol
Smite 2 is a Smite 1 graphical overhaul with major gameplay mechanics update patch. It's not a different game, it's an expansion at best. Why is anyone surprised there's no big hype. It's like I almost gave Diablo 4 another chance for the new season next week but I need to buy an overpriced expansion which is the exact same game so I'll probably never touch D4 again. It's like if Dota 2's patch 7.33 was sold as Dota 3. COMPLETE redo of the map and objectives for free, and everyone came back to play. Smite 1 could bring players back multiple ways, but pulling an Overwatch 2 on us ain't it chief.
Turns out funding a tournament for a game in ALPHA instead of paying their employees wasn't the smartest move, if they gave smite 1 one more year of content and spl they could have made a lot more money to go into smite 2. Instead they rushed everything and now they will probably do the same thing they did with all their games that aren't smite, that being just hype up the new game for like a month or two then shut it down.
Smite 2 was the single worst decision they’ve made in recent years. I’m all for smite 2 but they rushed it and forced it out by diverting all attention from smite 1, like removing spl, no more big smite 1 updates. They forced an alpha onto their community when over half the player base was still stuck on smite 1 or couldn’t access smite 2. They’ve single handedly destroyed everything they built over 11/12 years for an alpha of a sequel that is already WORSE in every conceivable aspect than their original, well established game.
Tbh this is what happens when you prematurely reveal a sequel to your only game that’s doing decently well and then tell your player base that only new stuff will transfer. If they were smart they would have not ever revealed smite 2 until it was actually ready and then players could have kept playing smite 1 and buying skins with blissful ignorance. After that players could easily go straight into smite 2 instead of flip flopping between the two games because the new one isn’t ready yet.
11:08 I wanted to add to this, someone like me that spent money on smite 2 diamonds now has no skins to use them on. Literally the only thing they're doing besides collecting dust is paying for their legacy passes each time a character comes out. Edit: Wanted to add, admitting that these games that they already had were on the backburner was SUCH a bad idea, but a necessary one. Anyone like me that's been playing Paladins for years had been holding out hope for Paladins 2 at some point. This makes it feel like Paladins 2 not only isn't coming; it's a near impossibility. But keeping us in the dark at the same time built mistrust between company and community.
This why I told my friends not to get the early access shit and especially seeing gameplay and it looked so much different from smite. To fire the art team?? That’s the money, that’s what we look for in updates. Top management problem, not lower teams. Sounds about right
Getting rid of the art division is not stupid for now. The personality types that make up these divisions usually have a low cost to output ratio. It was probably necessary for Hi Rez to make it to Q2 next year. They will eventually need them, but not atm.
On the contrary it was an exceedingly stupid decision because they absolutely needed the art team for developing SMITE 2, plus skins they can monetize and make money with. SMITE 2 is missing a ton of assets compared to first one. They're laying off carpenters before the building even has proper walls.
I unfortunately used the “its just an alpha” excuse but I always understood, from the beginning, it was released too early. I also found it extremely problematic that that they tried to make the alpha into a pseudo-live service game despite it…. not being ready in any capacity for that. They should have continued the shitty way of releasing it every once in a while with new updates. There was no reason not to. We arent that desperate to play Smite 2 in a completed form yet. But whatever, its still not ready. And despite weak3n saying so, Deadlock will affect Smites playerbase to a certain degree. A lot of smite players will migrate over, not because the games are identical or anything, but because its another highly competitive game that people can jump into. Sinking ship analogy here, deadlock isn’t a sining ship. Its rising. I play Overwatch (i know, OW and Smite, what a perfect combo) and those players are leaving OW for Deadlock for similar reasons. Losing all faith in the game, although the devs for OW arent talented whatsoever compared to Smites devs. However, they’re both perfect examples of CEOs that understand NOTHING ABOUT GAMES trying to dictate how a game should be ran. Gamers are a lot more biting of critics than other forms of media, because we put significantly more time and money into these games and devs treat us like children. Or that we don’t know what we’re talking about. Business is different here, and they’re out of touch.
Smite 2 was just too soon. They opened alpha in a bare bones state people ofc noticed. They got too greedy with the founders packages. I do enjoy god reworks but that's about all i can say about the game. It doesn't fix problems smite 1 had nor does it implement significant new aspects of other mobas like wave management. There's no reason to make a new game if you're not willing to innovate.
It's funny the upper management look down on gamers and content creators. Total Biscuit (RIP) helped put Smite into the minds of hundreds of thousands of people early on. When he revisited the game he had a ridiculous amount gems from referrals.
I hated how when Smitebwas in its hayday they didn't put back for a rainy day. They just kept wasting money chasing trends. Paladins, Rouge Company, DKO, Realm Royale, Smite tactics etc. Now Smite 2 is Hi Rez only hope or they have to slose up shop. This is poor leadership, and we are seeing it over and over in gaming. The love of money is the root of all evil.
I thoroughly enjoyed Smite 2 at the early alpha stages. Listening to feedback, they've managed to make the game worse with every patch. The game feels awful to play now.
Bro i tried to say this about smite 2 but naaah all these streamers and content creators was hyping it for NOTHING. I want this game to be great and succeed but till then....smite 1 i go
The thing is the content creators were hyping it up because it was being released already. Imagine an alpha releases for smite 2 and everyone just keeps playing smite 1 that would be like 10x worse for the company. The content creators are actively helping the company when they get player engagement up
After playing Smite for 10 years, this is exactly why I was hesitant into buying the Smite 2 Founder's Pack. The way they have handled the project is highly risky. Personally I feel they should have either kept Smite 2 to a remaster first (Just porting the existing game, no god changes, no item changes, no map changes) and then handle remake (experimental designs) changes afterwards based on community feedback.
i said it in the video yesterday i need someone to make an Ole Yeller cartoon where S1 gets taken out back by Hi Rez and S2 sitting inside waving holding up a middle finger.
@@pretentiouscarrot4292 Overwatch actually has some of the worst skins imo. going from smite to overwatch is actually what prompted me to start saying that lmao.
lets be real here smite 2 is a straight money grab cant buy skins and the alpha needs to be purchased. smite 1 still has more players because nobody gonna buy it to just lose there skins its pointless. bad business decisions were made and unless they go free to play soon they are going under
I literally said it for years ever since Paladins. They never should have tried to make anything else BUT Smite. And the idiots on reddit parroted the same nonsense every time I said that if they're working on something else, they're pulling development time away from Smite: "Nuh uh, no they're not, they're separate divisions of the company! It doesn't affect smite! hurrr durrrrr"
Seeing as how epic threw away paragon I doubt they’d want to buy smite, hirez ceo also wouldn’t sell the franchise unless it was extremely overpriced, because of his ego. If anything epic would just make their own game more like dead lock than smite to save some money and cash in on the hype. Smite is dead sadly
So sad. Smite was my first game, 2012 closed beta key access. I played against Weak3n (Team Mediocrity days) in ranked, and played it competitively until 2020, dropped it for other games but still played casually 2020-2022. When the news of Smite 2 came out, I was excited but also nervous that something exactly like this would happen. HI-Rez has had such a terrible history in terms of managing games. I always thought Smite was an anomaly, and Hi-Rez got lucky with being ahead of the curve with the 3rd person action MOBA. Everything Weak3n mentions has been a problem for some time now, and I think its all coming crashing down now. With the release of other titles as of late, and seeing how HALF BAKED Smite 2 is, it s no surprise that this is happening. Unfortunate that the OG Hi-Rez employees who made the game amazing and playable are now getting let go, I mean, seriously wtf is Stu thinking. So sad. 12 + years man. Onto other things.
Weak3n just jump ship bro. Been watching you for a while and you're definitely capable of pulling way more viewers with other games. I think you should definitely just jump ship to deadlock cause that is going to be the next big thing. Even bigger than Smite ever was. I could see you getting like 10k viewers with Deadlock eventually. Fineokay is jumping ship and I can see him becoming a top deadlock streamer. Plus you'll have opportunity to collaborate with bigger streamers as well under Deadlock. Of course I am just yapping you probably already know this. You have a very solid community already that will watch your Deadlock content. Don't let Hirez affect your bag bro. Much love Kurt.
the prob with smite 2 for me is that for someone who has not played smite one for years I find myself getting shit on by everyone that has kept playing. I just cant hang anymore to no fault of my own.
When they announced smite 2 I was happy to see where it could have gone but not being able to be able to play with friends or transfer the hundreds of skins over sucked for me and turned me off the game pretty quick and still haven’t seen anything about the “new” smite
His channel and socials seem to all be taken over now. All his vids are gone and his Twitter just has a brief explanation about how the owner has deleted their account or something, with a link to the whole ordeal that canceled him in the first place. I don't imagine there'd be anyone talking about it because nobody cares or wants to care lol, but it's interesting a little
I don't live in the US, but if they shut the game down can they use it as a write off for tax purposes? Cuz if they can I feel like that might be inevitable. Then as Weak3n says, its over Hi-Rez shuts down and they liquidate all assets.
tbf it is an alpha. Also most non-live service games bleed money for YEARS and then release the product and make the money back or don't. It is entirely common in the game industry to not make money for great lengths of time.
They probably should’ve just opened smite 2 without community testing. With it always being available people kept treating it like a finished product. My friends and I may be the minority, but we’ve been enjoying smite 2 and are just playing it per patch basis until it full releases
I wonder if the reason why Smite 2 was launched too early is because Titan Forge was bleeding money and needed to get something going, so they though Smite 2 would get them through for a bit. I agree if Smite 2 fails, Titan Forge is done. This is their last shot.
59:04 ILA turned down a 50% increase. They'll soon find out how replaceable they really are. Some of the highest paid ppl I know are ILA and they have the graviest of jobs and still cry poor. Welcome to the real world where wages have *always* been stagnant and low.
Reminds me of the congressional hearing the boeing ceo was at the other day where he had to answer to why the planes are literally falling out of the sky and having massive issues, yet he got a 45% raise last year alone. Just a greedy idiot that understands how to play corporate politics to benefit themselves, but is incompetent at literally everything else business wise as it pertains to their industry. Stu should have been gone along time ago, and certainly he should be gone NOW.
I think there's another big element to this story that hasn't been adressed. I think they want to bring some expert UE5 devs instead of wasting too much time on training the existnat UE3 devs
Basic project management skills… The CEO and leadership should of approached the smite 2 project with a basic agile parallel approach. Instead of doing it in a waterfall/approach.
It’s honestly amazing Hirez lasted this long with how many incompetent businesses decisions they’ve made over the past decade.
It's weirdly inspiring. If morons like Hi Rez can make a successful business, literally anyone can.
Make poolseidon buyable in smite 2 and it will save the world.
Wym Divine Knock Out was a great decision. They made a game no one asked for and made it crash and burn in spectacular fashion.
I always knew this company would eventually catch fire.
@@rentacar5 The amount of games they've created and killed ayayay
Holidays coming and these incredible devs have lost their jobs because of clueless top management
Bros game and football team is absolutely floundering rn. Rough year mate.
What’s crazy is that Smite 1 was in a decent spot about 10 months ago. Then when Smite 2 was announced, they actually released some fun patches for Smite 1.
It’s not like Smite was dog and everyone hated it and we needed to jump ship asap
@@savvvytyler smite 2 isn't smite 1 and people want smite 1 but better, when that's not smite 2
Yes the game was in a good spot but no new players were coming in and the player base was slowly dwindling as time went on. Not to mention the game was quickly getting out of date since it was made on UE3.
It was slowly dying and they knew it.
@@TACCRUSHERR They could've pulled an OW 2 lol. Just make broken promises and add nothing new to the game
@@25Alastor maybe, but Overwatch was an extremely popular game. It was the top multiplayer game before fortnite came and made battle royales the new norm. I just hope they can make Smite 2 hold it’s own for the next handful of years
The fact that he wasn't fired by the board/shareholders after what he did with Realm Royale was making this inevitable
Because the “board” is like 3 guys one of whom is the majority owner. They have no shareholders, it’s an old boys club
@@GNRDisturbedSlash well make a lot of sense how a CEO actively harming the company didn't get shown the door back in that time. Rip
I almost wish someone would just buy out hirez and do a sweeping change of management.
Careful. Embracer Group might hear you
@@Ahatch0788 Haha exactly why I included the “almost”, never know who might buy them and immediately shut them or smite down.
The monkey's paw is gonna curl on that one bro, be careful before EA or Ubisoft buys it.
Yeah then the company could be owned by the likes of Activision or Ubisoft.
None of the big companies are good anymore. All their sequels in the past 5 years have been crap. I think Capcom is the only company not struggling.
as an overwatch fan, you really dont want that. gaming is so bad rn, dev teams are being destroyed by incompetent and out of touch CEOs. Only to be bought by another incompetent CEO. Running theme here is usually its a CEO who has ABSOLUTELY no experience in gaming. Or no knowledge in gaming culture. And it kills them everytime. You wanna know why Nintendo has lasted as long as they have? They understand what makes a game fun.
This dude is saying 'I take accountability' but if he's still the CEO and not just removing that part from his Twitter bio, then he isn't taking accountability for shit.
Hirez needs to oust this guy, you should not be allowed to continuously burn money like they do on countless projects, and take their cash cow out back and put it down.
Keep in mind he's the same guy that cries about how bad capitalism is while at the same time running his company into the ground.
@@GunShark0gotta be that booger sugar 😂
@@GunShark0a CEO that hates capitalism? No wonder he’s so terrible at his job.
I worked in the video game industry as a 3D character artist for a few years and I even met people who worked at Sony and other big companies.
What happens is the decision to push or drop projects is done by Project Managers and Game directors.
Usually projects fail or not because either they don't know what they are doing, the production takes too long to go back and forth between feedback.
Higher ups have unrealistic deadlines and when not met with that demand. The company doesn't get investments and they start cutting budget.
They hire a bunch of outside talent to do quick work, which may or may not bug the game or decrease the quality of the work.
You will see this with all the AAA games nowadays. Black Myth is prime example of what every company should be doing.
The blame is put on artists, HR, "non-essential" roles, which are cut because they are more and it helps the budget. Where most of the problem has to do with the Managers and the higher up decision.
It is obvious that the company doesn't know how to put their money, and how to set realistic goals. Just because Riot can throw content every month doesn't mean they have to as well.
This shows to you that no creatives are indispensable.
There are layoffs in every AAA company all the time, because of how competitive it is.
Which is why I no longer work in the video game industry.
It's all about money. When the higher guy doesn't get his, they start to pull out and quit on everyone below.
I love that the streamers are finally getting to the point where theyre willing to acknowledge the short comings of the game with out hiding behind the word alpha. A little late tho
seriously theres been glaring problems and people kept going "its just an alpha"
@@mist5638 agreed its not a good look
i hate to compare things but i would argue that Deadlock is way more "Alpha" than Smite 2 is and that game is already in a better shape.
@@mist5638 Lost a friend who I argued with about this. Went from talking about how I thought Smite 2 was a failure to how he thought I was a failure.
@@180treehousegang8if you lost a friend over a soon to be dead video game then he was never a friend to begin with.
"Im taking responsibility by firing employees instead of decreasing my pay cut to keep them"
That's not a sustainable option. It sounds nice but wouldn't make any difference. You're right that he really isn't actually taking accountability though. No point in saying it if you're not gonna do anything.
@chillpengeru it's very sustainable. But just not for the entirety of the people fired. If he takes a pay cut then they can keep a few extra people. Even if it's 1 persons worth, then that's more than most CEO's
@@memphisacosta2145 the game and company are in crisis mode and need to be able to survive. Cutting the ceo's pay to keep one, maybe two art designers on isn't going to increase revenue, and if they can't survive long enough to get smite 2 in a good, profitable state, then no one's going to get paid because they'll be done for.
We don't know what the numbers are, as far as what he gets paid or what cash reserves the company has. Maybe they're fine for quite a while, I just find it hard to believe cutting one guy's pay (assuming he's not rakin in over a million, which I really doubt he is) is going to help sustain the company. It sucks but it's business, sometimes employees that aren't critical have to be laid off in down turns.
The art department at hi rez was seriously amazing so I'm sure they'll land on their feet and maybe even get a higher salary elsewhere. Still sucks though for the long-time guys.
@@memphisacosta2145 he didn't fire anything that'd fuck up smite 2, it's just the people on the skin pipeline.
not defending him but he did in fact take a pay cut, he just wasnt being payed as much as big company CEOs so it didn’t do enough. its significant when the CEO of nintendo takes a pay cut, but hi rez is a much smaller company
Glad Weaken talks about how the devs aren't at fault here. It's all management
Honestly you're 10000% correct. We wouldn't be here if he kept Smite 1 alive and chugging along for another year. While developing Smite 2 behind the scenes and getting all that "Knowledge" he talks about.
If you want a better job, you keep your current job while looking for a better job. You don't quit your job lose money while you try to find the better one.
As a smite casual player of 8+ years I find myself playing other gamers more then ever before and I don’t say this to shame just to share my experience
Same ive been playing smite on and off since 2014 and this is the lingest ive ever gone without playing it… im loving deadlock tho :)
I’ve been playing smite for about 10 years and same I don’t play it as often as I used to… other games caught my interest and the fact that the same gods get skins I get annoyed gods I enjoy never do
I haven’t played smite since 2018-19. I have a culminated 1300hrs. I’ve well put over 500 bucks into the game. I had my fill loved my experience but yeah I’m done with it. I think MOBAs in general are a dying breed
Same 8+ years here. Even now I can get on smite 1 and play for a few hours. Where as Smite 2 after 2 games the gameplay feels stale.
Same. It’s sad because Smite used to be one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences. Despite the extremely toxic community.
I'd honestly love to see you bring Tina or another og that got laid off on a call. See where that goes. NDA dependant of course
I personally just love when you go off on a topic for a video. As long as its an interesting topic, imma watch. Listening to the conversation you had on buisness and all that stuff was interesting.
I've been thinking about this type of content for myself for a while now. My editor trys to get me to do it all the time🤣
Do it , and i dont even consume your content that much @@Weak3n
@@Weak3nyou know a good amount about business (which is a given lul) but its interesting to hear. My family owns a business so I everything you say genuinely clicks and falls in line with how my dad talks about stuff.
The fact that out of the 13 games hirez has made two of them can be considered success is insane to me.
If HiRez had simply ran Smite1 into the abyss with no Smite2, this probably wouldn't happen until years from now. It's honestly baffling how badly the higher ups have messed things up
He mentioned the developer team still being big so people don't think Smite 2 will take forever.
Even though they have 80 characters fleshed out and game mode ideas ready to go, they are probably working so many hours, and morale so low from layoffs, that I'm really interested to see what happens to the game.
I want them to succeed, though.
Didn't they actively say only marketing and cosmetics were shoved?
Stew honestly should have stepped aside years ago. He consistently makes changes that hurt his own company. Also this comment isn’t a result of the recent firings I’ve held this opinion since Realm Royale. Also not s result of the tournament that’s actually a reasonable choice
Also focusing on more modes when your main mode isn’t good yet is wild? Stupid even?
It's crazy because Hirez' game launches always have a crazy response. I remember when Paladins, Realm Royale and Rogue Company came out. There were so many people checking out the games, but somehow, a couple of patches would go by and all of a sudden they dropped the worst patch in history to instantly kill the game. Paladins died due to OB 64, Rogue died because it tried to be a competitive game when there were already plenty of esports at the time, and realm royale failed due yo it being unpolished and getting a terrible patch 😕 it's tough
@@rockpaperchainsaw5274 I think the weapon mastery patch killed rogue company off honestly everyone just used the best gun and called it a day
Never refunded something faster than smite 2 founders pack
Based
Time to switch to Deadlock
Valve wins again without even trying.
Smite might have the best concept of any multiplayer game. Mythological gods and characters has so much potential
Haven’t played smite in around 6 months, and it’s been about a year and half since I played more than like an hour. This drama brought me back because it’s all kind of insane. Appreciate your coverage on the topic, you seem to be the most informed person I’ve come across. Another person commented that you should get one of the laid-off devs on a call and get their perspective, and I agree. That’d be awesome for the channel and the community. Glad to see you’re still doing well despite playerbase decreases! Cheers brother
It’s pretty hard to bs people who have been playing a game for 10 years.. smite 2 wasn’t ready
Notice how the CEO didnt take a pay cut instead of laying off OGs (says he did but like Weak3n said probably made it back with bonuses)... Dudes a huge loser.
They never do
the good ones do
bro you realize that for the CEO to say im getting a paycut and then they wouldn't have to fire people the the CEO's salary would have to be along the lines of literal 10-15 times the salary of an employee ? in the average company that isn't SUPER rich the gap is like 5 employes with the minimum salary get more than what the ceo gets in a month lmao
@@spirosmakris7142 found the CEO apologist
At this point I just want an invite to Deadlock to try it out.
Thought the same lol. I’m sure if deadlock is successful, valve will stick with it and make it a lot better.
Predecessor is mid imo
@@childpeanut5095 yeah, I played predecessor for like 2 weeks and didn't care for it much.
@@childpeanut5095 for sure, they have a huge upside potential to make it a successful game.
What's your tag
Dude the Fineokay and Week3nd collaborations gonna be sick!
I feel that most streamers and content creators don’t say what needs to be said whether it’s because they don’t want to be mean or just don’t want to confront people. I respect that you are calling out the CEO and questioning why he is still there. Leadership needs to change, or I believe smite and smite 2 will both be dead very soon
Hi Rez has done a horrible job with Smite this year. Smite 2 was not ready for a public release.
Smite 2 only had a small dev team during 2023. They basically created a proof of concept, then announced it and made it available to the public after 8 months of more serious development. It is insane how hi rez thought that would be ok.
Also killing the Smite 1 pro league to do tournaments for Smite 2 is an absolutly obsurd decision. Smite 2 is no where near ready for serious competitive play.
Smite 2 has to catch up to Smite 1 before it can be considered a replacement for it. At the rate they are adding gods to Smite 2 it will take over 3 years before all current Smite 1 gods are in Smite 2.
It is also hard to ignore how Valve has done a much better job with early playtest for Deadlock.
I agree on smite 2, but smite 1 was dead on a competitive level.
Whgo ever thought that that releasing a ALPHA for the sequal of the game and making it 30 bucks it wasn't going to get big they should've let it cook and release a new god once a year and just slowly make smite 2 then replace smite 1 likw o2 and cs2 did
these detailed discussions have been great to keep us informed about the going-on's. thanks Kurt youre a G.
I have pretty much accepted this as the death of smite at this point, i am trying not to think too much about it as this game even with all its flaws is very important to me but i dont see smite 2 being what it should be and i dont think it can save smite or hirez.
I hope i am wrong
Agree with you on everything aside from 4:06 paladins , when it got popular , was more popular than smite ever was , it was making alot more money than smite it wasnt even comparable , that in itself was what got them to overspend and run out of budget at one point leading to the shutdown of its esports scene .....
Paladins is a game almost everyone has played on console or pc, smite can't relate. They should focus on making paladins better instead
I don't understand why this guy is a CEO. Literally ran several great games into the ground again and again and again and he still hasn't learned his lesson.
Smite 2 could've been an amazing return to form with Hi Rez. However, if thus dude is at the helm that'll never happen because it seems to me that his pride and his "vision" is worth more than actual money, the community built off Smite, the SPL, the creative team, etc etc.
Why couldn't Hi Rez get someone like Harada, Sakurai, or Gaben at the helm?
Running a Tournament for a clearly unfinished game with a heap of bugs that impose the competitive integrity is beyond insanity. Laying off so many people who built what smite is... Past failures with multiple different Hirez titles, the issue is clearly at the top, but at the same time its pretty much too late to address that- there is no clear direction. Smite 2 is do or die for the company now. They either kick things into gear or the game simply dies along with the company. It seriously sucks because there is alot of peoples jobs and careers at stake here, and the game has potential that will never see the light of day with Stewarts leadership. This ship is sinking fast and deadlock is the lifeboat.
Hi-Rez stop Hi-Rezzing for 5 seconds challenge (impossible)
Hi rez should open a department for nsfw works. They got everything they need for it 😂. It’d make money. And they clearly need money
I was doing a bit of research and discovered that Epic was helping companies port their games to unreal 5 if they happened to be on past versions of unreal.
I’m not an expert on this topic but doesn’t that mean it’s technically possible for Hi-Rez to have copy/pasted Smite 1 into unreal 5? I understand that there would be numerous issues with doing that but it seems like that would’ve been the easier option than recreating the entire game from the ground up. Players wouldn’t lose the stuff they paid for and every god would be in the game. Every Character model has been upgraded before, why couldn’t they do it again with stuff like cloth physics, etc?
Instead, Hi-Rez has probably killed both Smite 1 and 2, along with the company. All for a quick cash grab on that Smite 2 name.
That's crazy if true. They could've kept running smite as usual for another year while porting it in the background, and got all the benefits of the new engine.
Maybe the crazy spaghetti code made that unfeasible though, who knows.
Maybe, we dont know. Theres some unknown variables to account for. Like, does HiRez have Epic contacts? What would negotiations look like? How easy/hard would it be? How much time or cost would it take?
@@cybzer0560 I’m sure they do because Smite 1 is on Unreal 3, which is made by epic. If smite is making money, you know epic is getting a percentage of that.
"We Need This Much Money To Create This Game" "We Have The Money Just Use It To Pay The Devs And Don't Worry Once Smite 2 Launches And We Become Billionaires We can hire People Again" - Stew Maybe
Personally, it feels "alpha" has been understood by the management as a test phase and a cash grab expecting more people to buy founder's editions and play the game without committing to frequent and important updates/fixes. Instead, everything just hangs out there with no clear direction until whatever's going on with outsourcing is done for the F2P release. I'm not expecting good changes in the development direction until 2025, apart from maybe getting more frequent god port releases that have not had major changes (Kali, Herc, etc.). 100% agreed on almost all of your takes in this vid. Yes, I watched the entire damn thing lol
If epic bought Smite we'd be playing fortSmite. Every god would have 10 dances 😂
Smite 2 is a Smite 1 graphical overhaul with major gameplay mechanics update patch. It's not a different game, it's an expansion at best. Why is anyone surprised there's no big hype. It's like I almost gave Diablo 4 another chance for the new season next week but I need to buy an overpriced expansion which is the exact same game so I'll probably never touch D4 again. It's like if Dota 2's patch 7.33 was sold as Dota 3. COMPLETE redo of the map and objectives for free, and everyone came back to play. Smite 1 could bring players back multiple ways, but pulling an Overwatch 2 on us ain't it chief.
So me being muted in the smitegame twitch chat a week ago saying this was going to happen wasnt wrong???
EXCITED TO SEE THE DEADLOCK CONTENT KURT!!!!
Turns out funding a tournament for a game in ALPHA instead of paying their employees wasn't the smartest move, if they gave smite 1 one more year of content and spl they could have made a lot more money to go into smite 2. Instead they rushed everything and now they will probably do the same thing they did with all their games that aren't smite, that being just hype up the new game for like a month or two then shut it down.
Smite 2 was the single worst decision they’ve made in recent years. I’m all for smite 2 but they rushed it and forced it out by diverting all attention from smite 1, like removing spl, no more big smite 1 updates. They forced an alpha onto their community when over half the player base was still stuck on smite 1 or couldn’t access smite 2. They’ve single handedly destroyed everything they built over 11/12 years for an alpha of a sequel that is already WORSE in every conceivable aspect than their original, well established game.
Tbh this is what happens when you prematurely reveal a sequel to your only game that’s doing decently well and then tell your player base that only new stuff will transfer. If they were smart they would have not ever revealed smite 2 until it was actually ready and then players could have kept playing smite 1 and buying skins with blissful ignorance. After that players could easily go straight into smite 2 instead of flip flopping between the two games because the new one isn’t ready yet.
11:08 I wanted to add to this, someone like me that spent money on smite 2 diamonds now has no skins to use them on. Literally the only thing they're doing besides collecting dust is paying for their legacy passes each time a character comes out.
Edit: Wanted to add, admitting that these games that they already had were on the backburner was SUCH a bad idea, but a necessary one. Anyone like me that's been playing Paladins for years had been holding out hope for Paladins 2 at some point. This makes it feel like Paladins 2 not only isn't coming; it's a near impossibility. But keeping us in the dark at the same time built mistrust between company and community.
This why I told my friends not to get the early access shit and especially seeing gameplay and it looked so much different from smite. To fire the art team?? That’s the money, that’s what we look for in updates. Top management problem, not lower teams. Sounds about right
Getting rid of the art division is not stupid for now. The personality types that make up these divisions usually have a low cost to output ratio. It was probably necessary for Hi Rez to make it to Q2 next year. They will eventually need them, but not atm.
On the contrary it was an exceedingly stupid decision because they absolutely needed the art team for developing SMITE 2, plus skins they can monetize and make money with. SMITE 2 is missing a ton of assets compared to first one. They're laying off carpenters before the building even has proper walls.
I unfortunately used the “its just an alpha” excuse but I always understood, from the beginning, it was released too early.
I also found it extremely problematic that that they tried to make the alpha into a pseudo-live service game despite it…. not being ready in any capacity for that. They should have continued the shitty way of releasing it every once in a while with new updates. There was no reason not to. We arent that desperate to play Smite 2 in a completed form yet.
But whatever, its still not ready. And despite weak3n saying so, Deadlock will affect Smites playerbase to a certain degree. A lot of smite players will migrate over, not because the games are identical or anything, but because its another highly competitive game that people can jump into. Sinking ship analogy here, deadlock isn’t a sining ship. Its rising. I play Overwatch (i know, OW and Smite, what a perfect combo) and those players are leaving OW for Deadlock for similar reasons. Losing all faith in the game, although the devs for OW arent talented whatsoever compared to Smites devs.
However, they’re both perfect examples of CEOs that understand NOTHING ABOUT GAMES trying to dictate how a game should be ran. Gamers are a lot more biting of critics than other forms of media, because we put significantly more time and money into these games and devs treat us like children. Or that we don’t know what we’re talking about. Business is different here, and they’re out of touch.
Smite 2 was just too soon. They opened alpha in a bare bones state people ofc noticed. They got too greedy with the founders packages.
I do enjoy god reworks but that's about all i can say about the game. It doesn't fix problems smite 1 had nor does it implement significant new aspects of other mobas like wave management. There's no reason to make a new game if you're not willing to innovate.
damn i got scammed!
love that haddix kicked elleon for his deadlock play now here they flock
Hi-rez has always been a big mismanaged mess Specially at the top.
It's funny the upper management look down on gamers and content creators. Total Biscuit (RIP) helped put Smite into the minds of hundreds of thousands of people early on. When he revisited the game he had a ridiculous amount gems from referrals.
I hated how when Smitebwas in its hayday they didn't put back for a rainy day. They just kept wasting money chasing trends. Paladins, Rouge Company, DKO, Realm Royale, Smite tactics etc.
Now Smite 2 is Hi Rez only hope or they have to slose up shop. This is poor leadership, and we are seeing it over and over in gaming. The love of money is the root of all evil.
saying "I take personal accountability" but not doing anything is just like Michael Scott yelling "I DECLARE BANKRUPTCY!"
Seeing that tweet going to work with the silence in the office 😂.
Hi rez employees across the board I ain't working today I'm updating my resume 😂
I thoroughly enjoyed Smite 2 at the early alpha stages. Listening to feedback, they've managed to make the game worse with every patch. The game feels awful to play now.
If Hi-Rez is ditching the art team behind Smite 1's cosmetics, they clearly don't want to make very much money with Smite 2.
Another useless CEO with no business acumen or shred of intelligence. Leadership is the reason HiRez is failing.
Bro i tried to say this about smite 2 but naaah all these streamers and content creators was hyping it for NOTHING. I want this game to be great and succeed but till then....smite 1 i go
The thing is the content creators were hyping it up because it was being released already. Imagine an alpha releases for smite 2 and everyone just keeps playing smite 1 that would be like 10x worse for the company. The content creators are actively helping the company when they get player engagement up
Smart people can get rich but that doesn't mean they are smart with money.
After playing Smite for 10 years, this is exactly why I was hesitant into buying the Smite 2 Founder's Pack. The way they have handled the project is highly risky. Personally I feel they should have either kept Smite 2 to a remaster first (Just porting the existing game, no god changes, no item changes, no map changes) and then handle remake (experimental designs) changes afterwards based on community feedback.
i said it in the video yesterday i need someone to make an Ole Yeller cartoon where S1 gets taken out back by Hi Rez and S2 sitting inside waving holding up a middle finger.
Haven't played SMITE since 2017 but one thing I have always said is that SMITE has the BEST skins of any game. What a shame.
Agreed.
Nah overwatch clears tbh but the art smite in Smite was GOATED.
@@pretentiouscarrot4292 Overwatch actually has some of the worst skins imo. going from smite to overwatch is actually what prompted me to start saying that lmao.
Is the old version of paladins he’s taking about when it was like a moba base defense thing?
I've always believed that Smite had whatever success it did in spite of -not thanks to- Hi-Rez
lets be real here smite 2 is a straight money grab cant buy skins and the alpha needs to be purchased. smite 1 still has more players because nobody gonna buy it to just lose there skins its pointless. bad business decisions were made and unless they go free to play soon they are going under
So they took my money and ran....
I literally said it for years ever since Paladins. They never should have tried to make anything else BUT Smite. And the idiots on reddit parroted the same nonsense every time I said that if they're working on something else, they're pulling development time away from Smite: "Nuh uh, no they're not, they're separate divisions of the company! It doesn't affect smite! hurrr durrrrr"
I wish DKO would've had a bigger impact. I really enjoy that game.
It was fun for a month :/
Dam it really be like thet
Hi-Rez Ceo and HADDIX must be closely related.
Seeing as how epic threw away paragon I doubt they’d want to buy smite, hirez ceo also wouldn’t sell the franchise unless it was extremely overpriced, because of his ego. If anything epic would just make their own game more like dead lock than smite to save some money and cash in on the hype. Smite is dead sadly
So sad. Smite was my first game, 2012 closed beta key access. I played against Weak3n (Team Mediocrity days) in ranked, and played it competitively until 2020, dropped it for other games but still played casually 2020-2022. When the news of Smite 2 came out, I was excited but also nervous that something exactly like this would happen. HI-Rez has had such a terrible history in terms of managing games. I always thought Smite was an anomaly, and Hi-Rez got lucky with being ahead of the curve with the 3rd person action MOBA.
Everything Weak3n mentions has been a problem for some time now, and I think its all coming crashing down now. With the release of other titles as of late, and seeing how HALF BAKED Smite 2 is, it s no surprise that this is happening. Unfortunate that the OG Hi-Rez employees who made the game amazing and playable are now getting let go, I mean, seriously wtf is Stu thinking. So sad. 12 + years man. Onto other things.
I knew it was over when he threw an ABSOLUTE FIT at valve for...checks notes....going after the same market as him
Add Jesus as a God in Smite 2 and add a deadpool skin for him. It will save company, I promise.
Well he is marvel jesus
@@PurplePumpkaboo exactly. He saved marvel for a bit, maybe he can save smite!! 🤣 one can dream
Smite is cooked, I was going to buy the founder’s pack to play but it might just shutdown.
Weak3n just jump ship bro. Been watching you for a while and you're definitely capable of pulling way more viewers with other games. I think you should definitely just jump ship to deadlock cause that is going to be the next big thing. Even bigger than Smite ever was. I could see you getting like 10k viewers with Deadlock eventually. Fineokay is jumping ship and I can see him becoming a top deadlock streamer. Plus you'll have opportunity to collaborate with bigger streamers as well under Deadlock. Of course I am just yapping you probably already know this. You have a very solid community already that will watch your Deadlock content. Don't let Hirez affect your bag bro. Much love Kurt.
the prob with smite 2 for me is that for someone who has not played smite one for years I find myself getting shit on by everyone that has kept playing. I just cant hang anymore to no fault of my own.
This honestly was my favorite game sad to see it struggling
When they announced smite 2 I was happy to see where it could have gone but not being able to be able to play with friends or transfer the hundreds of skins over sucked for me and turned me off the game pretty quick and still haven’t seen anything about the “new” smite
I feel like dmbrandon is somewhere celebrating.
His channel and socials seem to all be taken over now. All his vids are gone and his Twitter just has a brief explanation about how the owner has deleted their account or something, with a link to the whole ordeal that canceled him in the first place. I don't imagine there'd be anyone talking about it because nobody cares or wants to care lol, but it's interesting a little
I don't live in the US, but if they shut the game down can they use it as a write off for tax purposes? Cuz if they can I feel like that might be inevitable. Then as Weak3n says, its over Hi-Rez shuts down and they liquidate all assets.
Story of Hi Rez, Self played and sabatoged
tbf it is an alpha.
Also most non-live service games bleed money for YEARS and then release the product and make the money back or don't. It is entirely common in the game industry to not make money for great lengths of time.
They probably should’ve just opened smite 2 without community testing. With it always being available people kept treating it like a finished product. My friends and I may be the minority, but we’ve been enjoying smite 2 and are just playing it per patch basis until it full releases
They closed the coffin on smite 2 the moment they started working on it
I wonder if the reason why Smite 2 was launched too early is because Titan Forge was bleeding money and needed to get something going, so they though Smite 2 would get them through for a bit.
I agree if Smite 2 fails, Titan Forge is done. This is their last shot.
ah yes, stream slop. perfect for the second monitor 🙏
So what will happen to all of the content creators depending on smite? Will they play other games?
Will say it again: If you think that trying to take the Overwatch 2 route with your game is going to lead to success, you should just stop trying.
Deadlock is eating smite 2’s lunch. Smite 2 has so much more competition now they have to live up to to be on par with the new standards for MOBAs.
59:04 ILA turned down a 50% increase. They'll soon find out how replaceable they really are. Some of the highest paid ppl I know are ILA and they have the graviest of jobs and still cry poor.
Welcome to the real world where wages have *always* been stagnant and low.
Reminds me of the congressional hearing the boeing ceo was at the other day where he had to answer to why the planes are literally falling out of the sky and having massive issues, yet he got a 45% raise last year alone.
Just a greedy idiot that understands how to play corporate politics to benefit themselves, but is incompetent at literally everything else business wise as it pertains to their industry.
Stu should have been gone along time ago, and certainly he should be gone NOW.
Man whoever they end up selling the company to I hope they take smite to record breaking numbers
I think there's another big element to this story that hasn't been adressed. I think they want to bring some expert UE5 devs instead of wasting too much time on training the existnat UE3 devs
Basic project management skills…
The CEO and leadership should of approached the smite 2 project with a basic agile parallel approach. Instead of doing it in a waterfall/approach.
Hi-Rez leadership has always been a bunch of dirtbags. Hoping everyone that lost their job can find something quickly the job market is terrible rn.