As the summer heat rolls in, the vast majority of families spend their days outside enjoying the sun. They visit parks or beaches or walk on trails through green and luscious forests. For another group, the summer months bring excitement and competition. The Fighting Game Community (FGC) has begun its summer season with a fresh set of power ranking videos for respective regions in preparation for seeding in the multiple regional tournaments that occur every week. However, these regional tournaments, in terms of participants and hype, barely reach the popularity of two particular major tournaments: EVO and CEO. These two acronyms contain some of the largest turnouts for many fighting games during the summer months. These two tournaments are the highest caliber competitions and both have to offer a large stage and an even larger prize pool.
The Community Effort Orlando Gaming competition (CEO gaming) is the ten-year-old child of Alex Jebailey who revamped a forgotten tournament and turned it into a yearly super tournament for ten of the largest fighting games around. This year features: 837 players playing the newly released Street Fighter, 5,122 players playing Ultra Street Fighter 4, 166 players playing Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, 906 players for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, 637 players for Super Smash Bros. Melee, 202 for Mortal Kombat XL, 115 for Killer Instinct, 176 players for Guilty Gear XRD- Revelator, 249 for Pokken, and 256 for Tekken 7. In addition to all these competitions, each game offers a prize and bonus for the top eight competitors to share. What really makes CEO interesting is the location of each game's top eight. Alex Jebailey is a huge fan of WWE and his love for this sport has created the only gaming ring around. The top eight competitors compete in a wrestling ring and fans all around cheering them on. There are entrance songs for each competitor and small trash talk sessions before each match. CEO creates a quirky mix of competitive gaming and wrestling. To top it all off, the winner for each game receives a champion sized wrestling belt to raise above their heads. This year's CEO took place the weekend of June 24 and was streamed by multiple channels on Twitch.
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The Evolution Championship Series (EVO), on the other hand, is the crown jewel of tournaments for the FGC. Hosted in Las Vegas for the past 15 years, EVO has brought together the most popular fighting games in the world. EVO is considered the world championship tournament for most of the games in its lineup. To compete on the main stage at EVO is similar to playing in the NBA Finals or The World Series. Located at the Mandalay Bay Sports Arena, 12,000 seated spectators will watch the top eight competitors from Street Fighter 5, Guilty Gear XRD, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, Pokken, Tekken 7, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat X, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and Super Smash Bros. Melee, battle it out for a handsome prize and the coveted EVO Championship Trophy. For all nine games, there are a total 14,000 people competing with Street Fighter 5 boasting a massive 5000 entrants. EVO is where storylines within games start and where legacies end. EVO will take place on the weekend of July 15, 2016 and will be streamed all over Twitch.
EVO 2016 will be interesting for both of the Super Smash Bros. Titles as each title has seen the top players toppled by other players in the previous month. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, also known as Smash 4 or Sm4sh, has seen Gonzalo "ZeRo" Barrios dominating the first year of professional Smash 4. However, many notable top 25 players have caught up and have started to take games and sets away from ZeRo. In the past month, ZeRo has dropped games to Zero Suit Samus main Nairoby "Nairo" Quezada, Rosalina and Luma main Samuel "Dabuz" Buzby, Mario main Jason "Anti" Bates, Cloud main Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman, as well as others. The playing field has finally evened out and it has given this year's EVO an interesting twist. Also, many strong competitors from overseas are heading to Las Vegas. Notable Mewtwo main Yuta "Abadango" Kawamura is coming off of his last win on American soil and is ready to take another major tournament. This is Smash 4's second year at EVO and second year of competitive play and yet it has already created an engaging and addicting legacy.
Super Smash Bros. Melee is returning to EVO for its sixth year and although the game itself is 15 years old, the vitality of the players continues to burn brighter and brighter. Last year was the year of the Swedes as Swedish players Adam "Armada" Lindgren and William "Leffen" Hjelte took 95% of the tournaments they attended. This year has seen more mixed winnings among the "Six Gods of Melee". Juan "Hungrybox" Debiedma looked almost unstoppable with his safe and defensive JigglyPuff play but soon the top level players were able to counter his play through aggressiveness or defense. EVO will be the decider for the best player for Melee in the world and viewing attendance on Twitch is expected to reach 200,000.
Despite their prestige among the FGC, both EVO and CEO fly under the radar of the average American. EVO 2015, over the course of three days, had almost 19 million total views and 3.3 million individual viewers. These numbers grew by 113% and 66.7%, respectively, and will continue to rise as the FGC moves away from its grassroots and underground hub to a more mainstream and popular platform. The challenges that the FGC face lie in conventional ideas surrounding video games and sports. For a vast majority of people, sports require physical and mental exertion as well as some form of competition. Soccer, for example, requires speed, stamina and focus. Video games, on the other hand, require more mental skill and practice than physical exertion. Instead of running, video games require precise execution of hand movements and keen focus. Fighting games require a higher level of execution than a game like FIFA as certain buttons must be pressed in intervals less than 1/30 of a second. Not only do they require execution but also speed. Super Smash Bros. Melee players are pressing buttons on their controller at an average of five actions per second. Either way, E-Sports and the FGC will continue to draw vast underground viewers until E-sports moves away from the social perception that it’s nothing but kids playing around. The industry has evolved and grown tremendously in the past five years as platforms like Twitch and YouTube make streaming and viewing extremely easy and available for anyone with an Internet connection. E-sports are rising and with it comes all the thrills and joys that conventional sports have to offer, however, it’s all jam packed into less than 30 minutes.
