Update 2: Registration has closed, and the final numbers have been released. This story has been updated to reflect the changes.

Update: Registration for Evo 2018 has been reopened, and TEO will update the numbers accordingly upon release.

Today, CEO of the Evolution Championship Series (Evo) Joey “Mr. Wizard” Cuellar released the player entrant numbers for Evo 2018, the largest fighting game tournament of the year, with 11472 entrants across eight games. This is a 15.4% increase over last year’s total for the top eight games of 9707.

Evo 2018 Numbers – #Evo2018

1) DragonBall FighterZ – 2575

2) Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition – 2484

3) Tekken 7 – 1538

4) Super Smash Bros. for WiiU – 1354

5) Super Smash Bros. Melee – 1351

6) BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle – 1178

7) Guilty Gear Xrd: Rev 2 – 629

8) Injustice 2 – 363 — Joey Cuellar (@MrWiz) July 21, 2018

Recent years have seen the premier tournament’s numbers solidify in the five digits, but that hasn’t always been the case. Evo experienced explosive growth in 2015 due in part to the release of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Mortal Kombat X. While Evo 2014 had only 5707 entrants, the massive growth of the Smash community and influx of MKX players brought Evo 2015’s total registration to 10299. Since then, Evo has maintained at least 10K entrants each year.

Like most fighting game tournaments, Evo allows players to compete across multiple titles, meaning that the number of entrants does not reflect the number of individual players attending the event. 6797 individual players competed in Evo 2017, with the number growing to 7437 for Evo 2018.

Notably, every returning game from last year—with the exception of TEKKEN 7 which increased by 260—has seen fewer entrants in 2018. Street Fighter V , Super Smash Bros. Melee and Wii U, Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator 2, and Injustice 2 lost a combined 1101 entrants.

There are a number of likely factors for the decrease in entrants for established titles. The Summer months are filled with fighting game tournaments throughout the world, forcing players with limited travel budgets to pick and choose the events they can attend. Interest in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U has decreased as fans eagerly await the release of its sequel later this year. Injustice 2 has not released any new characters this year, an important part of the sustainability of modern fighting games. Still, despite the reduced entrants in specific games, Evo’s total entrants have grown significantly year-over-year, which indicates that the event as a whole is growing.

This is due to the success of the two new games Evo added this year: Dragon Ball FighterZ (DBFZ) and BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle (BBTag). These two games replaced Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and BlazBlue: Central Fiction, which brought in 648 and 499 entrants in 2017 respectively. For Evo 2018, BBTag has 1178 entrants and DBFZ has 2575, passing up Street Fighter V’s 2484. Because the headlining game of Evo is decided by number of entrants, this will be the first time since 2009 that a non-Street Fighter title has headlined Evo’s Championship Sunday.

Dragon Ball FighterZ in particular has had a major impact on the fighting game community since its record-breaking release in January of this year. Many top fighting game pros known for other titles like Echo Fox’s Dominique “SonicFox” McLean and Christopher “NYChrisG” Gonzalez of Evil Geniuses have shifted their focus to DBFZ almost exclusively. Meanwhile, publisher Bandai Namco recently launched the game’s official tournament circuit, the Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour. A version for the Nintendo Switch will be released in September , which likely add a wave of new players to the game’s fanbase.

The question for DBFZ‘s competitive scene will be whether or not the game can sustain this level of popularity. Street Fighter V had 5065 entrants at its first Evo in 2016, but fell by nearly 50% the following year. While most other esports have moved to a “games as service” model—releasing constant updates and balance patches for a single game—the fighting game community still relies heavily on excitement generated by new releases to fuel popularity. Players migrate from new title to new title, with each new game competing for a limited number of slots at major tournaments.

While this can make it difficult for brands and esports organizations to track ideal investments in popular games and pro players, it adds a unique level of stability to the tournaments themselves. Unlike developer-run leagues and circuits that focus on a single game, fighting game tournaments are not reliant on the success of any one title, instead thriving off of the popularity of the genre as a whole.

Until fighting game developers find a way to shift fully to a games as service model, tournaments will continue to ride the success of new releases, which means that event sponsors can count on regular cycles of enthusiasm and growth as new games continue to draw in tournament participants and viewers.