Disclaimer: This is a guest article. Any views or opinions expressed within this article are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of Melee It On Me, or any of its members or affiliates.
There’s no question about it: Smash is changing. Four years ago, the community was very closely-knit; it survived on Smashboards, nurtured by a handful of dedicated organizers and community leaders who did whatever they could to keep tournaments going. I was not a part of that community. I spent most of 2010 arguing with my best friend over how cheap Falco’s d-throw chaingrab was on Fox in Brawl. How there was nothing cool about being grabbed and pummeled by the Ice Climbers with no chance of escape. I was, in the purest sense of the term, a scrub. The worst kind of competitive player, someone who plays one-on-ones, but only accepts the legitimacy of a win based on their own made-up criteria.
Meanwhile, the two best Melee players in the world were starting a rivalry that would ignite the Melee scene with a furious fire. Two players, using characters no one thought were viable, facing off in Grand Finals at Genesis and then again two years later. Four years after Genesis II, their stories have expanded immensely. Both Mango and Armada have sponsors. They both wield dual mains, they both have rivalries not only with each other, but with a handful of other players hungry to upset them. They are making a living through Smash, a claim very few people can make.
Our scene has reflected their growth. Numbers have risen, from just under 700 at Evo 2013 to almost twice that at this year’s Evo. Samox brought exposure to the birth of the tournament scene through his nine-part documentary series, and thanks to a wave of community support, is hard at work preparing a feature length film on Mango, Armada, and the rise of the five gods of the game. Where hundred-man tournaments were rare five years ago, there was a string of sixteen straight weeks in 2014 that had at least one. Under the hard work of MattDotZeb, HectoHertz, and other amazing TOs, colleges and universities from across the nation are competing in the Melee Games. And a fan-made modification of Brawl has become so important to the scene that we are reminded of its presence on a constant basis.
It is the last part that hints at what’s truly going on with our community. Project M is showing us that our community has changed even from what it was a couple of years ago. Even since the documentary was released, many of the pictures it painted have been morphed, our scene is now a seemingly unstoppable and unrecognizable creature compared to the grassroots family of the post-Brawl era. We have had to face serious controversy, with the near cancellation of this year’s Apex being just one example of the countless obstacles we’ve had to overcome throughout the competitive Smash tenure.
We have also attracted the attention of organizations with money and power, and more often than not, our community has not handled their incorporation with much grace or dignity. While community leaders have addressed each individual situation with relative maturity and a level-head, there is a lack of discussion from relevant parties about the big question: What does being e-sports actually mean?
Photo courtesy of Melee It On Me
Family
The Second School Melee players, those who rose to prominence after Ken’s fall, during the post-Brawl era, always talk about how the Smash community is a big family. For them, it certainly is; when they went to Genesis, it was the largest tournament of its kind and everyone knew who everyone was. There were rivalries and arguments on the internet springing up constantly, and some feuds were very well known (see: Mango & Hungrybox).
For all the drama in the community, however, they were still family because nothing could come between them. It’s not like livelihoods or careers were on the line at Pound or ROM, it was just the people who loved Melee for what it was and wanted to play it. There was nothing at stake except for pride; no desire to try and be something they weren’t–it was pure and distilled Melee at its most basic level.
Much of that spirit still remains, but the nature of our family has changed. When I went to Apex, it’s not like anyone was unfriendly to me. I cracked wise with Tafo, made several stupid bets against MattDotZeb, and fanboyed hard when Hungrybox asked if he could play me in a hotel room because he said I had “a good Falco.” But there wasn’t a sense of family between Hungrybox and I when we played. It wasn’t about playing my brother who I’ve grown up with, trash talking and having a good time. Like a hundred other players at Apex, I was “a good Falco.” Sure, he would recognize me, but I was just practice for him. There was a divide between us; everyone at a venue wants to play the well-known players. They aren’t just players anymore–they’re celebrities–and even though they’re all down-to-earth, and no one has a big head about it, it’s tough to start a lasting friendship with someone while a pack of people are clamoring behind you to get a chance to play them. Even though our family members haven’t changed and are still as wonderful as ever, our family has.
It’s like going home for Thanksgiving 15 years apart; when I was younger my whole family filled the dining room table with 14 people. Now it’s an affair with everyone’s children, significant others, and so forth, to the point where sitting down at the same table is impossible. Now our Thanksgiving dinner is buffet-style, and instead of 14 people sitting down together, it’s 28 people sitting in groups of 5 or 6 scattered all over the house. Our family is all still there and together, but what we gain by having more family to enjoy, we lose by not being able to enjoy it together.
That’s how our scene has transformed: a bigger family, but a more distant one. And it has created issues, most notably in how we deal with each other. An argument on the internet is no longer about a rivalry between two people; now lines are drawn in the sand as hundreds of people take sides. It is here that the child of our scene comes into the picture.
Photo courtesy of Clash Tournaments
Project M and Nintendo
The community split when Brawl was released. Old School players stopped playing, and the members of the Smash community took sides then as they’re doing now. Eventually, as they grew older and learned more, they started bridging the gap between Brawl and Melee by creating a mod that aimed to make the former more like the latter. It would take the things we liked about Brawl (more characters, better textures, etc.) and make them as fluid and competitive as Melee. It was a success in basements and living rooms for some time, but might have just ended up like Brawl Minus or a half dozen other mods: fun, but not worth investing the time necessary to master it. But, whether through good timing or fortune, PM became a dominant force in the early part of 2014. When PM 3.0 was released, it was shortly after the documentary. Aided by the exposure it gained in the documentary itself, not to mention the constant praise and publicity by Dylan Sprouse, PM reached a fever pitch at Apex 2014, when two gods of the game demonstrated what high-level PM play could look like. It was fun, it was unique, it was easy to install, and it expanded the community in a way Melee itself couldn’t.
This, ironically, proved to be a major problem later on.
As our community continued to expand, there was a constant presence in the background. Nintendo had taken notice of the competitive community. Where for years they had been reluctant to work with us, their blunder at Evo 2013 showed them there was a passionate fan base. More importantly, when Nintendo shut down the stream at Evo, a campaign on Reddit (and other sites) brought a huge amount of exposure and bad PR to the company from sources outside the competitive community), and it became crystal clear that they had to acknowledge us in some way from now on.
Their involvement coincided with the release of their new Smash title, likely accelerated through the development process in an attempt to ride the wave of support Melee had been receiving. They saw the smash community as free PR for them, but only if they supported us. However, it has become clear that the support we want from them and the support they want to give us are not the same.
Nintendo’s invitational is probably the best example of the dissonance between desires: Nintendo’s tournament was run with their ideal ruleset. Smash was designed to be a four-person free for all game: chaotic, fun, exciting…and juvenile. If a person wanted to win in a free-for-all match, the best strategy was to run away and steal kills. The more a player entered the fray, the more likely they were to take damage and lose lives, and so while it is the best format for friends who do not take the game seriously, it is not the best format for determined, thoughtful competition.
Their balance to this, and an attempt to reach out to the competitive community, was to make Grand Finals a one-on-one battle, with no items. It was supposed to be competitive, skill-based, and exactly what the competitive community should have loved. And then Nintendo found out something those of us in the competitive community already know:
We want to win.
Photo courtesy of Venturebeat
For some people, the method doesn’t matter, it’s just the W that counts. So when Zero used a strategy that took advantage of the tools at his disposal to time out Hungrybox in Grand Finals, it showed the competitive community two things: one, that the philosophy of design in Smash 4 encourages defensive play in a way neither Melee nor PM does, and by extension, we learned that Nintendo doesn’t understand why we love those games so much.
Nintendo, on the other hand, took the wrong message away. Even though the competitive community was dissatisfied with Smash 4 from early on, the invitational was a big spectacle and Nintendo saw huge benefits from it. They determined that they wanted more to do with the competitive community, and began sponsoring events. Not only did they want to expand Smash 4 into a competitive format, they also sought to bring exposure to all of their Smash games. Which is where PM comes back into play.
The legality behind PM is ambiguous. In Japan, it is illegal to make modifications to software and distribute it without the consent of all parties involved. Since Brawl has intellectual property from Sega, Nintendo, Konami, Camelot, and scores of other companies, it is simply not feasible for a grassroots community to pay for, or at least bargain for, the consent from so many different developers. However, American copyright law makes no such restriction against the modification of the software. It only maintains that no money can be made from its distribution. Since the PM development team is mainly American, and they do not charge anything to download PM from their website, no one who plays PM is doing so illegally. However, this also means that Nintendo cannot have a stake in Project M or its future. Because PM is a Japanese company, and Brawl is filled with Japanese IP, if Nintendo decided to openly support and encourage Project M, they would be liable for lawsuits from all of the other stakeholders in Japan. On the flip-side, because trying to stop PM outright would be disastrous and futile, Nintendo has chosen to remain silent on the issue. More than choosing to stay silent, they have mandated silence on PM from anyone who they are affiliated with, for fear that making mention of PM could trigger a wave of expensive copyright lawsuits.
This has had far-reaching consequences in our scene. Nintendo was an Apex sponsor this year, and as a result, the largest tournament of our time could not host, or even mention, our (at the time) second-most popular game. Nintendo is likely behind Super Smash Con, which as a result will also not have PM available. VGBootCamp, our most notable stream service, whose status as such was aided in large part through their promotion of PM, has now ceased any affiliation with it. It has, understandably, left PM players in the dirt, scorned and upset at what feels like a personal attack by a company who has no regard for our scene.
Photo courtesy of Clash Tournaments
Selling Out
We arrive now at the big issue our community faces: Is it worth it to have bigger tournaments, more prize money, sponsors, streams, and all the perks of a booming community if we must give up the thing that we built together as a community…that seemingly kept us together? In the post-Brawl era, players joined together out of love and support for the game. Now our community’s baby is being shunned from all angles; those who previously supported PM have since been silenced. The question is on many people’s minds: are we selling out our child for the money we need?
There are good arguments to be had for both sides. PM has been a part of the community this entire time, but as we’ve seen more and more PM-exclusive players, it has developed into a community of its own. By shunning it and running events where PM is not welcome, we are cutting off a limb of our community. This goes against what we are supposed to be about: family. There is real animosity from PM-exclusive players, because it feels like no one wants them to be part of the family anymore. They feel as though all the statements from the documentary and leaders about our community being a welcoming family are fraudulent and hypocritical, and it’s all because we’re deliberately shunning a portion of our community to please Nintendo. They feel as if we’ve turned our back on what we believed in, in exchange for money and support. In the simplest terms, they feel as if we’ve sold out.
But there is a flip side: Comedian Patton Oswalt has a bit on his latest CD about what selling out meant for him. He had thought, growing up, that a person reaches a crossroad where on one hand, they have their integrity, and on the other hand, they have success and fame. He then told a story about working a show at a casino, where he was offered more money than he’d ever been offered, and was treated like royalty. He played a show to a room of 400 screaming drunks, was encouraged to go only half the time he was slotted for, told no jokes and just let the crowd scream and yell at him, got a standing ovation, and was offered to work the casino again at any point he wanted. The highlight is that he told no jokes. He was a comedian, that was his job, his craft, his artistic integrity, and he didn’t have to tell a single joke to get paid more money than he’d ever made before.
Our community has not sold out by turning its back on PM. If VGBootCamp had taken money from Nintendo to stream nothing but Nintendo advertisements and make no mention of Smash whatsoever, that would be selling out. That’s the casino show: turning your back on everything you’ve loved in order to be successful. Our TOs and community leaders have not turned their backs on Smash. Melee and Smash 4 are more successful than ever before, and are still growing. Evo this year will be massive; Melee may very well have the highest number of attendees of any game there when all is said and done. Super Smash Con is the biggest thing to ever happen for the series. Think of Smash 64, who previously had to rely on Apex for its big tournament draw every year. SS Con is likely to pull in even larger numbers for that game. Right now, around ten people are making their living through Smash. That number is likely to increase dramatically as tournaments become more commonplace, quality commentators, organizers, and streamers become more in demand, and the level of top players expands.
Yes, we have lost PM in that process. PM will never again share the main stage with Melee at our biggest tournaments, and the loss isn’t insignificant. PM-exclusive players feel this hurt deeply. There will be no massive prize pools for them, Smash’s biggest streams won’t show their content, and they will forever be relegated to a small side section of the venue. For Melee players, this is an acceptable loss–it’s collateral damage. For them, it is not like cutting off a limb, it’s more like removing a branch from a tree to allow it to grow to new heights. However, to assume that Melee players simply don’t care about the PM scene would be ill-informed and misguided. Melee has gone through struggles for almost 14 years now; Melee players can relate with the trials and tribulations of the grassroots scenes, of not being wanted, and of being downright dismissed by Nintendo. However, with the loss of PM comes the growth of Melee. Melee is entering a new era, and the Melee-exclusive players are excited for the possibilities that lie ahead of us now that their game has legitimacy.
Photo courtesy of Wynton “Prog” Smith
Thanksgiving
So what does that mean for our family? PM has torn a rift between us, where one side feels angry and hurt, and the other side doesn’t seem to care–but that doesn’t mean they don’t care. This is no different from returning home for Thanksgiving and finding yourself in the midst of a sibling feud, and the key to overcoming it is to remember what brings your family back together.
PM players, you are always a part of our community, and never let anyone tell you otherwise. People will continue to play PM, there will continue to be people who master it, and in time PM may even see exclusive tournaments of its own.
Who knows how long it will be before the Genesis of PM comes around to spark a rivalry between two PM-exclusive players? How long will it take before another VGBC comes around that is dedicated to PM? Melee and VGBC have both existed longer than PM has, so it makes sense that those two would be united. But families never outgrow themselves. I will never return home for Thanksgiving to be told there’s no room in the house for me because of a fight with my sister. We always have room for PM players in our community, and we will always support you in what you decide to do. PM is still family for the competitive Smash community.
But it is time to grow up. I was very fortunate that my family supports me in everything I do. They helped me through college, paid my rent and expenses when I needed it, and never gave up on me. But at some point I had to live on my own. I had to take responsibility for my own future, and for PM players that time is now. It sucks that it had to be this way, but Melee is growing up and becoming successful. It is unfair for PM players to resent Melee or its figureheads for their success. It is unfair to call them sellouts for making sacrifices to support the thing they love. The Smash community is still family, but as our family has grown, we’ve had to change what that means. We can’t all eat at the dinner table anymore, but just because we eat in smaller groups around the house doesn’t mean we love each other any less, and it doesn’t mean the Melee scene won’t do all it can to help the PM scene get back on it’s feet.
Written by Josh (roboticphish) Kassel, formerly of the MN Smash scene and currently a rising player in the MD/VA scene. He can be contacted at kassel.josh@gmail.com, or at @roboticphish, for information regarding this and future articles.
As a PM player, I don’t like this article. It feels like some Melee player is telling me “There there. I know it sucks to have your identity taken away–we’ve struggled before too. Well, I gotta go to Evo now because we actually made it through even though you won’t, but I’ll let you ride with me if you want!” Like come’on. The PM community is not dead and will not give up because one guy thinks we have no hope. Don’t tell us you’ve experienced problems when yours don’t really compare. And don’t tell us VGCB is not selling out because some comedian has one example of selling out and our situation is different. I really challenge your definition of selling out, especially because your source sucks. Maybe this article was supposed to put out the fire of pissed-off PM players, but it just made me, who’s generally peaceful, more pissed.
Josh never said PM has no hope. Did you actually fucking read the article?? He semply said it can no longer be helped by the larger Melee community. It has to work for itself now. PM is in a similar state now as Melee was pre-documentary in a way. Melee wasn’t huge, and the community had to work together and fight to keep the scene alive. If PM’s community at large truly loves the game as much as they say, they will fight as hard if not harder than the Melee community did then, because they are going to have to to survive.
I love PM as much as I love Melee, but it is very irritating seeing the PM community leaders bitching and complaining about this mess. Is it so hard to understand that PM will be shut down if at a large event that nintendo is sponsoring? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want PM to be shut down. I want to be playing this amazing game in 14 years. But the community must fight harder now than ever before if that is to be a reality.
Furthermore, what is your definition of selling out? Because you critisize Josh for his definition being bad or whatever, but then fail to give your own. C’mon dude.
I primarily play PM, but also play melee as well. I don’t think there was anything wrong with this article. The situation we’re going through isn’t a fairytale with a happy ending and everything isn’t pretty. By the author elaborating that we won’t be getting into major prize pools, the view on selling out, as well as where we all stand in the community of smash, I dont think there were bias enough claims to get mad as a PM player based off the article; he clearly wrote what the truth is for PM in this moment. If you were getting mad at something you need to take a step back, take a breath and look at what the reality of everything is.
The only reason you take it as a condescending remark from a “melee player” is that you are too sensitive on the topic to have an objective viewpoint. He never said “PM community is dead” by any means either. Don’t put that in his mouth; we are not dead and it’s already been established that we have caught our footing and will continue to progress through the rough patches. He stated quite the opposite of PM death by saying that we’ll continue to play and make tournaments, that a new vgbc figure head will come along, and that maybe one day we’ll get national tourneys with 2-godlike players facing off.
To make the statement against melee and the players that they don’t know the feel and that “their problems don’t really compare” is a straight cop-out feeling bitter and entitled in your own game. Melee has gone through the most controversal moments for smash between them and brawl, so idk how you can claim they dont know what its like or how “they just dont understand”. Also vgbc wasn’t selling out, they’re their own brand and have the rights to do whatever they want. when gimr was supporting PM and was supported by pm he didn’t have intentions to take advantage of their money or have some plan to ditch them later. circumstances happened that changed the game for everybody and it forced their hand to make a hard decision – cutting off from PM. our situation is different from his example, but there’s still things to take away from it. Too many people make claims that if you don’t support PM you are against it, when there’s more to realize. There’s so many gray areas in the matter and not supporting PM in particular doesn’t make you a sell out nor does it mean you have to be against the game.
I think the article wasnt to “put the fire of pissed-off PM players” it was to clearly organize and display the situation in a clear light where every side is accounted for, without anger and large scale community bias. You shouldn’t be expecting something different that will magically make you feel better because the situation itself sucks as a PM player. But the thing is, we can change that…and anyone who says it how it is isn’t being rude or an d***. As PM players we have to accept how it is and stop pointing fingers cause we’re bitter on the situation.
No, he didn’t say that PM is dead. but he DID say that it’d be cut off.
I do realize that complaining doesn’t get anywhere, but the way this article was phrased was sounding like: “There, there. You were kinda cool… but you kinda gotta go….”
As a melee exclusive player, PM definitely deserves a seat in the community, and a place a tournaments. Playing competitive smash since 2006, I’ve seen sponsors come and go and come back, so I’m rather disinclined to think appeasing Nintendo on this matter is worth it.
What kinda bullshit is this lmfao
We’ll build our own fucking stages dont gimmie this sentimental crap, everyone most fucking definitely sold out and now some guy gets to write for MIOM in some underhanded attempt to soften the blow, get outta here.
You don’t get to tell everyone how innocent you (especially that fucker gimr) are cos of some comedian’s story, come the fuck on.
PM players are apart of the community funny joke there. This whole thing just makes me not wanna support sellouts most people don’t care about PM’s future. Lets not be phony here.
Honestly, why should I be expected to care about PM? It’s never done anything for me, so I think it’s fair for me to say I’m not obligated to support it.
As a melee player, I’m kind of astonished that miom would host a guest article like this. Sure it can be called an opinion piece, but its also making a lot of assumptions of the melee community that are completely off base.
Imagine if melee the game was the nodded game, and pm never existed. Would you stand by and trade away THAT for Nintendo’s “support”? I sure as fucking hell wouldn’t! That’s how all the pm players feel right now. Everyone’s saying how the game is a mod and is standing on illegitimate and possibly illegal grounds, but until that’s an issue why is that an issue? Nintendos ” support” has resulted in melee getting kicked off of MLG, out of evo, and almost out of evo AGAIN in 2013.
People sure are quick to forget how little Nintendo has done for us in the past. I’m not going to believe they’ve changed until I see it. And so far, all I’ve seen are a whole lot of free advertising for their new game.
As a melee player, I do not support the authors definition of “the potential to grow bigger” because that route has never shown a shred of evidence towards the benefit of our community. You know what has made melee grow? People like scar creating miom, people like m2k badgering every single friend they have to donate to get us exposure at evo, people like hmw that kept the world alert that the melee scene was still alive. But better than all of those people combined, is the players. Players like you and me who travel hundreds of miles to play a video game and cheer fr our favorite players.
That’s the “potential for future growth” that I’ve seen throughout the history of the scene. That’s the avenue that I want to support, BC that’s what I believe in. I don’t believe in Nintendo. I believe in you and me, and the pm community is part of that.
The analogies in this article are horrible. Really disappointed that MIOM even considered hosting this article
What an giant piece of bullcrap. I am astounded that this was posted on MIOM, this doesn’t represent the vision of the Melee community or the state of P:M at all.
I refuse to believe that the expansion of Melee and Smash 4 mandates the removal of Project M from large-scale Smash events. Also, I’d like to say a few thins about this paragraph:
“Who knows how long it will be before the Genesis of PM comes around to spark a rivalry between two PM-exclusive players? How long will it take before another VGBC comes around that is dedicated to PM? Melee and VGBC have both existed longer than PM has, so it makes sense that those two would be united. But families never outgrow themselves. I will never return home for Thanksgiving to be told there’s no room in the house for me because of a fight with my sister. We always have room for PM players in our community, and we will always support you in what you decide to do. PM is still family for the competitive Smash community.”
The next Genesis of PM? Shots Fired and Aftershock are certainly candidates. The next VGBC? We’ve got folks like Tourney Locator and AZ Project M doing work. VGBC has NOT existed longer than PM, according to a tweet by Strong Bad. And the situation you’re proposing sounds a lot like Project M isn’t being invited to Thanksgiving with the family, but we can invite some friends over for dinner and that’s supposed to be perfectly fine.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with a lot of the sentiments in your article, but I’m severely disappointed by your conclusion.
As a PM player not only do I find this article to be incredibly poor at solving any issues with the PM community, I feel as though the writer alone has made me wish to disassociate myself with Melee entirely. With people like this in their community, it makes me want to avoid supporting Melee entirely because of people like you.
Thanks for making people even more mad then when they came in.
Yeah, keep telling yourself VGBootCamp didn’t sell out. I’ll keep laughing.
Family isn’t family only when it’s convenient.
“PM is still family for the competitive Smash community.”
Except we sit on the table by ourselves, and are not acknowledged by the figureheads of the family. Sometimes we’re not even acknowledged by the rest of our family. What kind of environment is that? Why would the PM family not be pissed off that they went to a family gathering that advertised itself as “We care about all of our family so much! Lets all come together and celebrate our family!” When that just doesnt apply to them?
Josh, did Nintendo pay you to write this article?
^that was a joke, but so is some of your writing. A comedian going on stage to host a roast of himself (which is what Patton Oswalt did and talked about in some material on his last album) is not the same situation that PM is in currently. The Smash equivalent of hosting a self-roast would be an event something along the lines of a bunch of competitive players appearing on a stage to play in a distinctly non-competitive environment where they knew they wouldn’t be able to showcase their technical or metagame prowess while being forced by the financial backer of the event to pretend they were enjoying themselves and feeling the hype. Sound familiar? You also neglected to mention that part where Oswalt talked about how guilty and ashamed he felt after that show, and how he has not returned to that venue, ever, because he would rather miss out on easy money in order to maintain the integrity of his own vision for what he wants to do in comedy.
I feel like what you’ve really got wrong here is your assumption that absolutely everybody (whether they’re players, TOs, or streamers) has no choice but to cooperate with Nintendo. That is NOT TRUE. If VGBC hadn’t received funding or other support from Nintendo, there is no chance they would have dumped PM, because that is the exact opposite of growing and supporting the smash community. It was Gimr’s choice to accept $$$ and support from Nintendo, and he knew that the price he had to pay was excluding PM and turning his back on a community that he had a large part in growing. It can’t have been an easy choice, and I don’t think we can or should blame him for choosing the way he did, but just because he chose to sell out does not mean anybody has to support that kind of attitude or act that way themselves.
The smash community has existed for a long time, and will continue to exist with or without Nintendo. The idea that we need high-profile sponsors (or, more to the point, need to compromise our values in order to receive money from high-profile sponsors) in order to run events is a new one, and a very silly one. Considering Nintendo makes the games we love to play, it would be nice if we could cooperate toward a shared vision, but we owe nothing to the company if they want to bully and bribe us into choosing their casual-oriented product over a legal mod that we have been playing for years. Have you already forgotten EVO 2013? Nintendo’s sudden interest in the competitive scene is almost definitely because they want to promote and sell sm4sh, and if people want to play that game, that’s great, but Nintendo has made it clear that they are not our friend and their main interest is only for profit, and not in fostering a competitive community, which is something that should leave a bad taste in all of our mouths.
This isn’t a case of splitting up the Thanksgiving table. This is more like a bunch of armed thugs showing up to a dinner party and randomly beating the shit out of one of the diners before leaving and telling everyone else at the table to have a nice day. Not to get all #oneunit or anything…but I think the most important thing the smash community, regardless of game, can do for each other is support each other, and if that means rejecting Nintendo until they’re willing to cooperate, that needs to be our number one goal.
Smash community DID sell out. Stop trying to justify it
To put it plainly, it just isn’t worth cutting off this “branch” in lieu of the decaying but brightly coloured mess that is smash4. They released another purposeful party game with mild and short-lived competitive features, used the community to market and even contribute (dk’s roll + others) and it only cost the deconstruction and competitive stall of something the community got behind and created when Nintendo would rather contest streaming rights. They’re going about this the wrong way entirely and its only hurting themselves.
Anyone with half a brain can see that PM was always on borrowed time. Nintendo, a Japanese company,simply doesn’t veiw mods the same way as western game devs do.Im honestly surprised and thankful that Nintendo hasnt hit PM with the C&D hammer
I, for one, appreciate this article.
Gimr sold out, and I don’t appreciate that MIOM is covering for him with this. We’re a grass roots community, and you don’t have our best interests in mind.
As a melee player, I am deeply ashamed by this article.
“PM will never again share the main stage, but that’s okay, because muhlay is growing!1!!one”
“We totally understand though; you’re still family even though we’re selling you out.”
Wow, what a load of unbelievable, hypocritical horseshit.
Fuck your high handed, sanctimonious shit. Fuck you.
I think this is adorable. I don’t think you realize that those starving PM players don’t want to be comforted and patted on the back.
They want to play their game.
And if more and more tournaments CUT OUT their game, they’re going to be pissed. I know I would be.
They’re not mad because VGBC stopped streaming PM.
They’re pissed because all upcoming tournaments have completely excluded any affiliation with PM.
“Acceptable loss”. Absolutely adorable.
When did we decide to kneel down to Nintendo and demand their affection? I know we didn’t at Evo 2013.
What has happened in that 2 years?
They called us to a poorly run invitational.
They released a new game “It’s not even bad.”
They sponsored our largest tournament ever… and booted an entire game from it.
VGBC didn’t cut u off.
they moved u somewhere else….
Paragon coincidintaly had a PM tournament a month before/after an all-star smash tournament