RallyHere teams up with Titan Forge Games on live service operations

RallyHere, a division of Hi-Rez Ventures, has partnered with Titan Forge Games to handle Smite 2 live service operations.

Alpharetta, Georgia-based RallyHere started out as a division of Hi-Rez Studios. It handles the games-as-a-service tasks and backend development, helping to offload game design teams so they can concentrate on making fun games. The tech is battle-tested as Hi-Rez Studios as more than 200 million players for games like Rogue Company, Smite and Paladins. And RallyHere is handling live services for game companies beyond Hi-Rez Studios now.

RallyHere has focused on cross-platform video games-as-a-service, and it has announced a strategic partnership to provide live service operations support for Smite 2, the highly anticipated sequel to the world’s No. 1 cross-platform MOBA currently in development by Titan Forge Games.

RallyHere’s comprehensive product suite covers key features essential for running live service games across multiple platforms. The platform is currently supporting the backend infrastructure for five external games and an additional six titles from Hi-Rez Studios. I spoke with Stewart Chisam, CEO at RallyHere, back in December.

“One of the lessons we’ve learned in Hi-Rez over the years was that — especially when you’re trying to make a multiplatform game as a service — you wind up spending a tremendous amount of your budget, your attention, and your risk management and risk planning around a lot of the technical backend services and operations,” Chisam said.

“That’s a big part of the game. It’s an incredibly important part of your game. If it doesn’t go well, you can’t scale. To put that burden on the game studios that are making the games is a heavy creative distraction,” Chisam said. “And so one of the things we developed at High-Rez Studios over the years — where we grew to having five studios making different live service games — was we built really a platform that we came to call RallyHere. And that took a huge burden off of the creatives inside the studio itself.”

Titan Forge Games, the largest in-house studio at Hi-Rez, boasts a player base exceeding 40 million and is renowned for developing Smite. With a commitment to exploring the potential of the Smite universe, Titan Forge Games delivers immersive, action-packed gaming experiences rooted in mythology and modern themes, fostering global competition on an epic scale.

Alex Cantatore, executive producer at Titan Forge Games, said in a statement, “It’s not just the game engine that is getting a strictly better upgrade from Smite to Smite 2. We are excited to take advantage of the new features and capabilities within RallyHere’s modern backend infrastructure. RallyHere gives us the confidence to publish Smite 2 on multiple platforms at launch, so players can team up with friends worldwide, regardless of platform.”

Chisam echoed the excitement, saying, “RallyHere is proud to power Smite 2. Building, launching, and maintaining a new matchmaking system that can handle even more concurrent users, reimagining ranks, while powering full crossplay and improving the item store – we’re thrilled to partner with Smite 2 and the Titan Forge developer and business teams.”

A long gestation

It took years to develop RallyHere. But the company started finding developers as external customers about a year ago. And now it’s getting pretty established with games that have a lot of users.

Hi-Rez Studios dove into free-to-play games back in 2010. That’s when it started developing its expertise in backend technology. While the components of RallyHere developed, it took time for the company to decide that it would turn this backend service into a business. That decision happened around 2019, Chisam said. The company upgraded its platform with massive investments. Then it took testing.

Now, game companies are looking for ways to cut costs, and Chisam believes RallyHere can help with that as it offloads overloaded developers.

“There has been a lot of getting back to fundamentals, getting back to basics to focus on how do we make sure that the games we have can be operated in a sustainable, long-term way and cost structure,” Chisam said. “How can we make sure that the games we’re making can be high-quality games, but also come in at a cost structure that makes sense?”

The collaboration aims to enhance the overall gaming experience for players of Smite 2, ensuring seamless cross-platform play and optimal live service operations. With the advanced backend infrastructure provided by RallyHere, Smite 2 looks poised to leverage modern features for a global audience. RallyHere has about 40 people on its team.