Community
The community is a self-supporting network of people that have banded together to make the Super Smash Bros. scene what it has become today. Most major tournaments are arranged by members of the community, and are sometimes supported and advertised by organizations such as Evo. Some significant sections of the community include Smashboards, GameFAQs, Smash-Mex, All is Brawl, the Smash modding community, Global Smasher Compendium (formerly), and the Smash Wiki itself.
The history of the smash community spans about 14 years, mostly beginning with the creation of Smashboards which has become a major intersection for playing and discussing the Super Smash Bros. franchise. Some milestones include Melee's inclusion in professional tournament circuits such as MLG in 2006 and again at Evo in 2007, the creation of the Global Smasher Compendium (now discontinued), a successful petition for Melee to be broadcast at Evo, and the first unofficial community census in 2013.
Demographics
On 20 June 2013, Smashboards member GreatGonzales began an unofficial open census of the Super Smash Bros. community that took place across several community websites including Smashboards, GameFAQs, Kitty Corp Meow Mix and All is Brawl. The census was closed on 12 August with 733 people having responded to the census. The census admittedly has some flaws, such as only being available in English, its unofficial and open nature (making it more of a survey), and posing questions with a relatively restricted answer list.
Results from the the census suggests that the community appears to be male-dominated with about 25 males to every 1 female, and that most community members are between the ages of 18 and 24. Most of the responses are from people who live in North America (~85% of responses) and Europe (~10% of responses), with the remaining 5% of responses roughly divided between the remaining continents and Central America, except for Africa with remarkably little participation.
Regarding preference towards the first three Smash games, the community tends to favor Melee the most, Brawl the second most, and then Smash 64 the least. The census also suggests that competitive players tend to favor gameplay closer to Melee and casual players tend to favor gameplay closer to Brawl.
Data was also collected on the character preferences of respondents. The census found that in general character usage mostly correlates with higher character tiers. The strongest character usage to tier placement correlation is found in Melee where characters in the top half of the tier list are used nearly 85% of the time; However, the census suggests that casual players use the same characters just as much as tournament players, in almost the exact same proportions.
One finding of the census was that 20% of respondents have no plan to purchase Super Smash Bros. 4. After analysis, the census found that an overwhelming majority of the respondents who do not plan to purchase Super Smash Bros. 4 consider Melee to be their favorite game. However, the group least likely to purchase Smash 4 was found to be those who favor Smash 64 - 50% having no plan to purchase.
