“How can you run Smash tournaments and not think that it’s an eSport?”

I’ve had to answer this question about a dozen times over the past couple months. Between the Leffen-Visa issues and the massive petition that followed it, my own personal opposition to the petition (often citing UltraDavid’s article on sportification), and my region’s first really large tournament I’ve had frequent arguments about the state of the Smash series as a potential eSport title. And why shouldn’t Smash be considered an eSport? It’s one of the most successful competitive games currently played, with Smash 4 and Melee both being featured on the main stage at this year’s EVO Championships. It isn’t just about national success and popularity though, my local scene has four different weeklies and has a community that probably includes somewhere around one hundred people total — I’d have to be crazy to think that this isn’t eSports, right?

The Smash community is a diverse collection of players from all different backgrounds, races, and ages. Some of these people, the Smash OG’s, have been involved with Smash for years. They go back to when it was a small, grassroots effort, back when it was originally featured by MLG, way before it was getting over 10k viewers on Twitch for tournament weekends. For others, Smash is their first venture into the world of tournaments and competitive video games, whether it’s because of Smash 4’s flashy aesthetic and ease-of-access, or because of EastPointPictures’ fantastic Smash Doc (which is the reason I started getting into Melee, and subsequently Project M). Smash has history, it has growth, and it has big tournaments — so why do I think Smash (and games similar to it) have a precarious position in the world of eSports?

What is an eSport?

I think one of the big problems is the typical misconception that “eSports” and “competitive video games” mean the same and are used interchangeably as a result. Anything can be a competitive game — you make some rules, you hold an event, some money gets thrown into a pot, and boom, you have a competitive video game. eSports is different — it requires infrastructure, it usually has a larger player base, generally it involves major regional, national, and international events, and it has a standardized rule-set that allows for people to play all throughout the world and to play the same game that tests the same skills.

The Smash games are almost there, but infrastructure, more than anything else causes the biggest divide between eSports and just regular competitive video games. Companies like Riot, Valve, and Blizzard have the luxury of deep pockets, but they use that money to further legitimize the scene with production value, by creating lavish events at major arena venues, by having some sort of league structure for their biggest events, and, most importantly, by funding and crowd-funding their events so that the community shares a connection with the game’s competitive growth. eSports infrastructure is growing at an alarming rate and while some games and companies have been left in the dust, one company has spearheaded the efforts for that growth unlike any other.

Valve’s contributions to eSports began almost six years ago with the first International, DotA 2’s largest annual tournament, where they contributed a then record-breaking 1.6 million dollars to the prize pool. By TI3 they introduced the compendium system, a digital “book” that spectators could buy where 25% of the proceeds were added into the prize pot for that International, while also rewarding compendium owners with in-game items, the ability to create fantasy teams, the ability to vote on which hero would receive new items and sets in the upcoming months, as well as an array of other cool features and rewards. While the ability to get a lot of stuff for ten dollars was a selling point, people liked being directly involved with the increasing prize pool, creating a culture of support for their competitive scene. By the end of TI3, the prize pool reached 2.87 million dollars, at the end of TI5 the prize pool reached 18.4 million dollars, with 16.8 million of that coming directly from the community, and right now, with TI6 just under two months away, the prize pool is sitting at 11.8 million dollars, and rising everyday.

Due to the compendium system’s success, it ended up bleeding into their other tournaments as well. Other large tournaments sold “tickets” directly in the game client, a tool that allowed spectators to watch the tournament matches live, have access to VODs, and put 25% of that money into their own prize pools. Tournaments were no longer funded just by themselves and larger corporate sponsors; they could rely on the community to make a tournament. The compendium system is just one shining example of what Valve has done to ensure the growth of DotA 2 as an eSport title and to improve the overall quality of the fan experience.

The general point I’m trying to make is that Valve has created a system that enables tournament scenes to achieve self-sufficiency through community funding, where their money bolsters prize pools, which incentivizes sponsors to get involved, which allows players to play full-time, which increases the quality of the product, which gets more people to watch the game, etc — it’s a cycle of growth that requires a strong initial investment and constant upkeep, but does a tremendous job of legitimizing a product that is easy to dismiss as “just video games”.

That isn’t to say that somebody needs to play a video game full-time for it to become legitimized as an eSport, but how many Smash players have that opportunity? Salaries, especially ones that allow a player to play full-time, aren’t common in Smash. Getting first place at a major tournament is a nice paycheck, but it doesn’t even match what the last place teams took home from last year’s International. Nintendo, and console games in general, don’t have an easy way to generate additional revenue from their games’ competitive sides outside of extra game and console sales. Some Smash tournaments have started to privately offer “compendiums” a la DotA, but they lack the creativity and in-game customization rewards that games like DotA, League, CS:GO, and even SC2 can offer. Large tournaments like EVO and Dreamhack offer a place for Smash and other fighting games exposure to a wider audience and determine who the best players in the world are — but they don’t make a game an “eSport”. If a company can’t find a way to monetize the competitive scene and grow it organically through community participation and donations that extend beyond pot-monstering, I think it’s doomed to linger in an eSports purgatory — occasionally scratching at what the major developers and publishers offer, but never truly finding their spot at the table.

So what now?

Smash’s exclusion from traditional eSports isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that organizers and players need to be creative in how they promote and organize their events. Traditional fighters were born out of the arcades and, until recently, had largely been a grassroots movement. After seeing the investment of the community companies like Netherrealm Studios and Capcom both offer large pot bonuses to events like EVO, while Capcom even has its own tournament series, CapCup, to keep top players interested and paid. Nintendo has shown that they have a passing, but growing, interest in the development of their games’ competitive scenes by offering support to a smattering of tournaments over the past couple years — a major departure from their previous policy which was both archaic and self-harming. There has been independent growth within the scene as well, with the development of Project M’s Circuit Championship, a collection of tournament series’ which aim to provide some structure to Smash’s favorite fan-made mod. Depending on how the Circuit ends up playing out I’d love to see other major TO’s adopt a similar system for Melee and Smash 4. The successful development of a Circuit Championship might even incentivize Nintendo to continue exploring the world of competitive gaming. Smash is already recognized as one of the best series in competitive gaming — it just needs some direction and support before it can make that final push towards total eSports legitimacy.