Topic: EVO Tournament Announces Super Smash Bros Games Will Not Be In 2022 Tournament

[Shaymin]

The list of possible reasons are myriad.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/59775/evo-tournament-announces-super-smash-bros-games-will-not-be-in-2022-tournament

The EVO fighting game tournament is planning its return to in-person competition this year, but Super Smash Bros will not join them.

EVO's Twitter posted a tweet today announcing the game reveal would air on their Twitch channel on March 8, but also announced in advance of the stream that Smash Bros would not be returning for 2022.

pic.twitter.com/7YEX1ZgG4W

— EVO (@EVO) February 26, 2022

Smash Bros. games appeared at EVO in 2007 (Melee) and 2008 (Brawl) with a supported side tournament in 2009, and returned with Melee in 2013 after a successful charitable donation drive. Melee appeared in 2014 as well, and Smash Wii U joined it in 2015 - 2018, with Ultimate being the sole Smash game for the 2019 tournament. Ultimate was also among the games announced for the 2020 tournament before it was shifted to an online format due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the online format being used last year as well.

In the two years since Smash Ultimate was announced for the EVO main stage, ownership of EVO passed to Sony following one of the main owners being accused of sexual misconduct, and Nintendo announced a deal for a major licensed Smash tournament circuit in 2022. Third party DLC characters "Minecraft Steve", Sephiroth, Kazuya Mishima, and Sora were all added to Ultimate since the planned 2020 lineup was announced.

[Luigi Dude]

I imagine after all the sexual abuse that was revealed in the Smash Bros community, Nintendo is very strict about any in person Smash events.  I imagine the deal with Panda involves some pretty strict guidelines that have to be followed, and EVO probably wasn't willing to go along with these same guidelines, so Nintendo went, "No Smash for you".

[Adrock]

I feel like Sony buying Evo last year has more to do with it. Nintendo will play nice with Microsoft when it benefits Nintendo to do so. Nintendo has nothing to gain by helping Sony make Evo a more attractive event. Likewise, Sony also hasn’t been particularly keen on partnering with Nintendo either.

[broodwars]

I feel like Sony buying Evo last year has more to do with it. Nintendo will play nice with Microsoft when it benefits Nintendo to do so. Nintendo has nothing to gain by helping Sony make Evo a more attractive event. Likewise, Sony also hasn’t been particularly keen on partnering with Nintendo either.

I think this has more to do with Nintendo cracking down on Smash Bros. tournaments in general than with Sony owning EVO now. After all, they did just make a big deal about Sony's 1st party MLB series coming to Switch.

[Adrock]

Yeah, but that’s Nintendo getting something and doing very little for it. Not helping Sony could be a bonus.

Nintendo has generally been pretty weird when it comes to tournaments despite the extra exposure and marketing-while-doing-next-to-nothing. I can see Nintendo not wanting any even perceived association with bad faith types though linking Nintendo to sexual abusers who happen to play its games is tenuous at best. The company has very little control over who plays its games. Then again, Nintendo swerves hard when it didn’t need to. Recently, it took down a YouTuber channel hosting Nintendo music with thousands of copyright strikes. I guess, but maybe put the music online yourself? No? Alrighty.

That said, Nintendo could just want tighter control though that puts responsibility squarely on its shoulders. Having Evo or another host running a tournament gives Nintendo plausible deniability. Also, Evo was online only last year. If there’s a spike in COVID cases that are traced back to Evo, at least Nintendo’s name isn’t on there. Lots to consider here.