SMITE developers head to Kickstarter with a troll campaign

Hi-Rez Studios, the developers of the popular 3rd-person MOBA, SMITE, have started a brand new Kickstarter campaign. They are looking to develop a game called… game… and they only want $50,000,000 or so to get the project off the ground.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the video and blurb from the Kickstarter page (via PC Gamer):

in gaming, perception is reality, and we’ve worked years on building a foundation to make reality our vision. when we learned of kickstarter, it was the perfect platform to fully explore our next vision. we are calling it – game.

but what is game?

2d. openworld. resource based. metroidvania. visceral. cinematic. procedurally generated. drivatar. retro. the cloud. dark souls.

game is not a game. it’s an experience.

join us on this journey.

Interested? Here are the rewards you can unlock if you part with your money:

– $10: mr. harris will write you a letter, as a thank you for funding his vision. you may select any letter from A to Z, except for T (that’s belongs to him).
– $200: a physical copy of game (local pickup only)
– $350: receive an urban outfitters printed official “game” shirt. print will be of the title screen (pure white).
– $500: you will be able to use your name as the main character of game, via the in-game keyboard.
– $750: pixel art portrait of you (limit 1 pixel).
– $1000: todd will call you (collect) to personally* thank you. (*may be a recording, depending on availability.
– $5000: todd will take you on a personal tour of hi-rez studios. studio photo tour will be sent upon receipt of pledge.

I’ll have you know that it was an absolute nightmare to hold out on editing the above to include proper capitalisation and such. IT HURTS MY EYES! Obviously this is a troll campaign. Why would Hi-Rez, or more specifically, Todd Harris (the Co-founder and COO of the company) do this though? For attention? To make fun of Kickstarter?

I think it’s the latter, which I can kind of understand because sometimes people will really throw money at the silliest of things. I mean, the fact that this entire campaign is a joke hasn’t stopped 18 people from throwing $180 at it. Then I remember that Kickstarter was the platform that gave life to titles like Divinity: Original Sin which has received nothing but critical acclaim. Without Kickstarter, that game would probably not even exist.

What do you think? Is this post from Hi-Rez in poor taste, or do you find it hilarious?

Last Updated: June 10, 2015