Council Culture

How Hi-Rez is tapping into its community for game insights.

In the summer of 2019 a group of Olympians assembled in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, to discuss development of the god-themed MOBA, Smite. The Olympians were players halfway through their year-long terms as council members, each there to represent player interests across Smite’s multiple modes, platforms, and community niches.

The idea for using player councils originated with Smite’s sibling game Paladins in the run-up to the 2018 Hi-Rez Expo event. The Paladins team were focusing on quality and community, explains brand director Alex Cantatore. Their thinking was, “It would be great to actually just get [the community] involved in the decision-making process and give them early looks at the things that we’re doing and find out if this is something we should be doing.”

There had also been a slight shift in the workforce. “We have some people on staff here that had worked for CCP for a long time,” says Hi-Rez CEO Stew Chisam. “They had some insights into how valuable [player councils] could be.” CCP’s space MMORPG EVE Online has an elected Council of Stellar Management (CSM). The CSM works with devs to improve EVE which is what Chisam is referencing, although in EVE’s specific case the CSM is also an occasional inflection point in massive digital interstellar warfare.

An example of community feedback in action at Hi-Rez is the Paladins champion Raum, a demon with a minigun. The team only started working on Raum because they were taking a break from a champion the player council hadn’t warmed to at all. “We were excited about this champion concept,” says Cantatore. “We were like, ‘Man, this is going to be our best champion ever!’” After weeks of internal hype the dev team put the champion onscreen to show the player council and were met with… nothing. They didn’t even hate it. “It was the worst, like, no reaction, you know?” says Cantatore.

So the team stepped back from that character for a while and Raum was the result. Meanwhile, the unannounced champion has gone through multiple iterations and feedback cycles. “We showed them the most recent concept and they were … blown away. But it took lots of back and forth,” says Cantatore. And even with the concept now in place there will be plenty more discussion as the council decides how she actually plays.

SMITE AND MAGIC

For Smite there isn’t a big championlevel point of impact from the player

Smite’s 2019 Olympians attend the first annual summit at Hi-Rez Studios.

Council feedback helped buff Camazotz, Smite’s (underperforming) Deadly God Of Bats.

A chilly council response to another champ led to the creation of Raum.

Rogue Company will also follow the player council format.