Community: Difference between revisions

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A '''community''' is a group or groups of people that are drawn together and connected through shared interests and/or goals. A community is typically defined by having a clear method of joining, definable values all members abide by, and a sense of exclusivity with distinctions between members and non-members. Various sub-communities can also form under a larger community for those that exist under the same mission statement but diverge in specific values.  

 

 

The creation of social media sites like [[Facebook]], [[YouTube]], and later [[Twitter]] and [[Twitch]], further expanded the community, as the ability to connect became easier than ever. This also turned figureheads of the community into celebrities, particularly well known competitive players. There were also instances of the entire community coming together to achieve a shared goal, with instances including the creation of the now discontinued [[Global Smasher Compendium]], a successful petition for ''Melee'' to be broadcast at EVO{{ref|EvoPetition}}, and the first unofficial community census in 2013.

 

 

 

Nintendo has had historically rocky relationships with those that play their games competitively, but it is considered especially cumbersome with the competitive ''Smash'' community, due in part to series creator Masahiro Sakurai disliking the high entry floors that many fighting games are known for. Sakurai's decision to make ''Brawl'' a slower and more casual-friendly game compared to ''Melee'' was a particularly divisive issue, as many had come to relish how technical ''Melee'' gameplay had become. Many also accused him of being hypocritical, feeling that making a game enjoyable at all skill levels did not involve intentionally excluding a significant group of fans to attract others. Other fans believed it to be a necessary sacrifice due to the fact that the games' casual fanbase greatly out-scopes the game's competitive fanbase, pointing to ''Brawl'' becoming the best-selling fighting game, a title it held for over ten years, as evidence that it was overall the better decision.

 

Nintendo at first largely stayed out of competitive ''Smash'' affairs, only sponsoring and licensing a select few events throughout the years. As such, the community has developed a decentralized, grassroots approach to running tournaments, which has proven to be successful and is even considered one of its strengths, for it allows the community to work together to overcome adversity that comes their way. For instance, after the shutdown of {{Trn|Apex 2015}}'s original venue, players, spectators, and organizers alike worked together to avoid having to cancel the tournament altogether, ultimately succeeding once they were able to secure a new venue with the help of [[Twitch]]. This has also had the effect of creating hesitance to Nintendo getting further involved with the community, which many feel is a necessary step for ''Smash'' to become a legitimate eSport.

 

 

Nintendo subsequently increased their involvement with the scene, first by inviting several top players to the {{Trn|Super Smash Bros. Invitational}} at [[E3 2014]], then by offering partnerships with several major tournaments throughout the next few years, allowing ''Super Smash Bros. 4'' to thrive during its heyday. Although warmly welcomed by many community members, the community for ''[[Project M]]'', a [[mod]] of ''Brawl'' that intended to make the game more competitively friendly and began drawing more entrants than ''Brawl'' itself, did not feel the same way, for they were averse to letting Nintendo get involved if it mean they could not play their preferred ''Smash'' title in tournament again{{fact}}. Ultimately, ''Project M'' faced numerous {{H2|Project M|legal issues}} and eventually suspended development entirely, with members of the team saying it was done out of fear for legal ramifications of making a gray market product. Modders in general also did not want Nintendo getting further involved given their long history of taking down fan games and hacking projects lest they undergo a legal injunction.

 

During these times, the tournament scene continued to grow, especially with the release of ''Super Smash Bros. Ultimate'', which holds the record for largest ''Smash'' tournament at 3,534 entrants at {{Trn|EVO 2019}}. Thus, a movement began in earnest to make ''Smash'' a proper eSport, which would allow for even bigger tournaments with higher prize pools. Although the increased sponsorship revenue made this likely, many in the community argued it would never happen until Nintendo themselves began funding tournaments. Since 2019,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dexerto.com/apex-legends/ea-extremely-strict-rules-apex-legends-events-revealed-577623/|title=Apex Legends Tournament Guidelines Article|publisher=Dexerto|date=April 26, 2019|author=Connor Bennett}}</ref> various esports titles, such as those made by [[Capcom]] and Electronic Arts, have been receiving community guidelines for their tournament scenes.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.capcomprotour.com/community-license/|title=Capcom Pro Tour Community Licence Guidelines|publisher=Capcom}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ea.com/games/fifa/compete/fgs-21/community-tournament-guidelines|title=FIFA 2021 Tournament Guidelines|publisher=Electronic Arts}}</ref> This is in response to a rise in eSports industry trends, with China notably seeing eSports grow beyond traditional sports in popularity and seeing government support.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/10/04/1080767/esports-china-asian-games-tencent/|title=MIT Technology Review on East Asian esports|publisher=Technology Review}}</ref> As such, Nintendo's increased involvement was seen as a signal that they were slowly working their way into doing so, especially with the release of the competitively oriented {{Uv|Splatoon}} games.

 

A significant blow to the idea of Nintendo supporting competitive ''Smash'' came with the announcement of the EVO Japan 2020 prize pool. In contrast to the other games which had large monetary prize pools, the top prize for ''Ultimate'' was a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, with Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa saying that Nintendo had no intention of giving tournaments large prize pools<ref>[https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/nintendo-ceo-explains-decision-not-to-offer-esports-prize-money/ Video Games Chronicle - Nintendo president explains decision not to offer esports prize money]</ref>. Many players realized that Nintendo was less interested in supporting the tournament scene and more interested in using it as a marketing tool{{fact}}, emboldening the grassroots side of the scene, which intended on running the scene regardless of what Nintendo had to say about it.

 

In November of 2020, Nintendo ordered the [[cancellation of The Big House Online]] over its use of [[Project Slippi]] in the ''Melee'' tournament. This was heavily criticized by the community, with them arguing that Slippi was the only safe way to facilitate a ''Melee'' tournament amidst the [[COVID-19 pandemic]]. After an anonymous "informed ''Smash'' insider" published a [https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1srfu4r Twitlonger] explaining Nintendo's history of inhibiting the ''Smash'' community, many other players and organizers came out with their own stories about their troubles with Nintendo, ultimately causing "#SaveSmash" to trend on Twitter. It even bled over into other communities, with a notable example being the finals of an official ''Splatoon'' tournament livestream being canceled likely due to several members having nametags that reference the movement in some way. This caused most of the teams to simply walk out and join a fan-made tournament, canceling the official finals. Many came to the consensus that letting Nintendo get involved would only hurt the community; as such, the announcement of the {{Trn|Panda Cup}}, an officially licensed North American circuit created with the partnership of Nintendo and [[Panda]], was met with equal parts excitement and skepticism. The latter mindset was further emboldened by the [[cancellation of Smash World Tour 2022]] after Nintendo refused to issue them a license to operate. Although Nintendo did not explicitly order its cancellation, the organizers interpreted their refusal to issue a license, and the fact they were not on the Panda Cup, as a legal threat and took what they believed was the safest course of action.

 

In October 2023, Nintendo released the [[Nintendo Community Tournament Guidelines]], a series of guidelines placing restriction on small, non-profit tournaments run without a formal license. The announcement resulted in controversy in the community, with many accusing Nintendo for continuing to exert unnecessary control over the tournament scene. Some points of contention included the ban on unofficial accessories, inhibiting those with disabilities that use modified or custom controllers to play the game; the inability to provide attendees with comestible items; and the attendance cap of 200. The guidelines nevertheless developed many defenders, particularly those who saw it as setting standards that many other game companies had done for their competitive titles years prior, or merely as Nintendo filling up holes in their intellectual property protection. Several Japanese tournament organizers found ways to work with the guidelines, with {{Sm|Nojinko}}, head of the {{Trn|Sumabato|series}} series, being able to secure licenses for the next ten Sumabato events within a day of the guidelines releasing.

 

 

Throughout the early 2000’s, ''[[Super Smash Bros. Melee]]'' was honed and mastered as a fast paced, highly technical game that involved exploiting the game's mechanics to increase the skill ceiling to a level far beyond what most fans conceived and what the developers intended. When ''[[Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'' released as a slower, more casual friendly game with many exploits utilized frequently in competitive ''Melee'' either nerfed or entirely absent, it was immediately met with a mixed reception by the competitive scene. Many interpreted the game's radical differences from its predecessor as a sign that the developers did not approve of competition at all and were solely targeting the casual fanbase. The release of ''Brawl'' also prompted those who disapproved of an entry level fighting game like ''Smash'' getting a tournament scene to voice their disapproval, feeling that competition went against the "spirit" of the game. Another major point of contention in these discussions surrounds statements by series creator [[Masahiro Sakurai]], who regretted how ''Melee'' became the antithesis of the entry level platform fighter he wanted to create, thus choosing to deliberately tone the exploitability of the game down to better suit his vision. Thus, those that moved to playing ''Brawl'' and those that stuck to playing ''Melee'' became divided, and frequently argued whether Sakurai's intentions were reasonable or misguided; such debates popped up numerous times on almost every forum or social media site that discussed ''Smash'' for several years.

 

These debates cropped up again with the announcement of ''[[Super Smash Bros. 4]]'', which the developers claimed would aim to strike a balance between the styles of ''Melee'' and ''Brawl''; while the decision to balance the two styles was lauded, discussion centered on which one of the styles it should lean more towards, or if it should attempt to strike a "golden mean" between them. The release of the game resulted in the discussion shifting to one between ''Melee'' and ''SSB4'', culminating in ''Melee'' players jeering at the game during Grand Finals at {{Trn|Apex 2015}}. While this divide has died down since then with ''[[Super Smash Bros. Ultimate]]'' praised by both sides as a good compromise between the two styles, and the two camps have even agreed to work together at times, animosity between them still remains.

 

Although the community's decentralized, grassroots approach to running tournaments has often been considered one of the community's strengths, it has also meant that regulating the community and setting standards is extremely difficult. The [[Unity Ruleset Committee]], which attempted to unite the heavily fragmented ''Brawl'' community by imposing a single ruleset and issuing infractions for undesired behavior, was often criticized for being too strict and only inflaming the problems they were meant to solve. Their attempt to ban the controversial {{SSBB|Meta Knight}}, who many players argued was [[broken]] for warping the metagame almost entirely around him, resulted in even more controversy; tournament organizers in regions with many Meta Knight players chose to ignore the URC's decisions to allow Meta Knight players to join and thus earn more profit, while other regions adopted the ban due to having very few Meta Knight players to speak of. The fracturing that the ban caused ultimately led to the URC to collapse and disband, leaving the decision of rulesets to each individual tournament organizer.

 

The lack of a regulatory body has also enabled many undesired behaviors, such as substance abuse<ref>{{cite web|url=https://twitter.com/Smashbro_Z/status/1062501637724418048|title=Z on X|date=November 14, 2018|publisher=Twitter}}</ref>, to infest the community. The [[SSB Code of Conduct Panel]] was created in 2018 to impose punishments for players caught engaging in these behaviors, although they too would be embroiled in controversy for their handling of these situations. For instance, they recommended the unbanning of {{Sm|Mafia}}, who had been accused of sexual harassment<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20170712214240/http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sq18m8</ref>, after he sought therapy and self-remedies to better himself<ref>https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sqpn8k</ref>. The recommendation was roundly criticized by the community, and a panel of 23 tournament organizers appealed to keep him banned<ref>https://twitter.com/SSBConductPanel/status/1088839277138583552</ref>. The panel ultimately disbanded in December 2020 after the misconduct allegations published in July of that year, which themselves were seen as a symptom of the community's continued lack of regulation, left them overwhelmed, with them claiming it would take them years to sort through all the claims<ref>https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1srgobs</ref>. An attempt by tournament organizer Cagt to keep problematic people out of tournaments with the Global Ban Database also fell apart in 2022 over issues he had in managing it.

 

 

 

On August 15, 2013, All is Brawl came under a sustained [[Wikipedia:Denial-of-service_attack|distributed denial-of-service attack]] (DDoS attack). Other sections from the "All is" network were affected as well. The following day, SmashBoards suffered an intrusive attack that led to a reset that lost the forum roughly 10 hours of data. On August 25, Smashboards went down, initially reporting that it was experiencing server issues{{ref|DDoS1}} and later confirmed that the site was also under a sustained DDoS attack{{ref|DDoS2}}. It is unknown if the SmashBoards intrusion on August 15 is related to its DDoS attack on August 25. On August 27, the ''[[Project M]]'' website became the third site to go down as a result of a DDoS attack.

 

All three sites remained mostly unresponsive until August 28, when SmashBoards briefly went back up before trying the CloudFlare anti-DDoS service. [[AlphaZealot]] reported that owners from each site were working together to find a solution. {{ref|DDoS3}} ''Project M'' webmaster [[Warchamp7]] later told video game blog site Kotaku that "the only viable solution to the problem at this moment is expensive and not something we can easily pursue", but added there were plans to mitigate the attacks if they continued{{ref|DDoS4}}.

 

 

 

 

 

In November 2022, the then upcoming and highly anticipated tournament [[Smash World Tour]] suddenly [https://medium.com/@smashworldtour/smash-world-tour-official-statement-f568a3d135c8 announced] that their tournament would be canceled at the last minute. Their reasons for doing so were that despite productive conversations with Nintendo months earlier claiming they would not be shut down, the company came to them and said they will not grant an official license for the tournament and, in response to if SWT can still run their tournament without a license, Nintendo stated "those times are over." SWT took this as an indirect threat of legal action if they continued and felt forced to shut themselves down. Due to not receiving a license and being barred from receiving any license in 2023, SWT organizer [[VGBootCamp]] also shut down all of their major 2023 tournaments, including Glitch: Duel of Fates and Double Down. While Nintendo spoke to Kotaku defending themselves by stating they did not specifically request the tournament to be shut down, SWT would rebutt with written evidence to back their claims.

 

 

Later analyses of the situation led to heightened criticism of VGBC, with many arguing that their actions jeopardized a chance to turn ''Smash'' into a legitimate eSport and irreversibly damaged correspondence with Nintendo, and criticizing the sustained harassment many Panda employees experienced and VGBC inadvertently instigated. Many would also go on to argue that VGBC brought the situation upon themselves, seeing as they were unable to secure a license despite Nintendo initiating correspondence with them, and feeling that Nintendo's statement of their lack of adherence to their health and safety guidelines was visible in the insufficient security at their events, particularly at {{Trn|Double Down 2022}} which saw {{Sm|Technicals}}, who was banned from the venue, sneaking in during grand finals due to the security detail turning in for the night<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCqgRuostPA thefranChise - "The UNSOLVED Mystery of Smash World Tour"]</ref>. Alan would go on to state on the Lights Out podcast that the fallout led to the shutdown of Nintendo's IP licensing department, and eventually led them to create the Nintendo Community Tournament Guidelines after an internal restructure<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2DpSz8mpuA&t Dr Alan Reveals EVERYTHING That Happened w/ Panda! | Lights Out Episode 36]</ref>.

==See also==

* [[Template:News|Smash news]]

 

# {{note|Modders}} [http://forums.kc-mm.com/index.php The Kitty Corp Meow Mix Forums]

# {{note|EarlyHistory}} [https://bignokh.com/2017/01/26/smash-history-the-early-ages-2001-2003/ Smash History: The Early Ages (2001-2003)] by EdwinBudding, 26 January 2017

# {{note|Melee@MLG}} [http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/12909 Super Smash Bros. Melee at Evolution 2007]

# {{note|EvoPetition}} [http://shoryuken.com/2013/07/09/changes-to-evo-2013-smash-schedule/ Update: Smash is Back!! Changes to the Evo 2013 Schedule]

# {{note|vBExploit}} [http://smashboards.com/threads/smashboards-was-hacked.302874/ Smashboards was hacked]

# {{note|DDoS2}} [https://www.facebook.com/smashboards/posts/569132199820821 Smashboards' Facebook announcement acknowledging a DDoS attack]

 

[[Category:Smash communities| ]]