Nintnedo has been pretty hands off on the semi-professional
Super Smash Bros. eSports scene. Instead, the gaming company is focusing its efforts on making
Splatoon its big eSports title, along with the recently released
Arms. However, at a recent tournament, 1st place winner Juan “Hungrybox” Debiedma took to the winner's circle, beseeching the game manufacturer for more support.
"
A certain company that acknowledges us but refuses to push us, I hope you're listening right now. Because I want you to hear this, I want you to hear the amount of people that support this league- the amount of people that want this to be a lifestyle. This is not just a video game, this is a lifestyle! [crowd cheers] This game has been my escape for over a decade, from whatever else life offers. And for everyone else, if that's the same for you, I love you and thank you for coming!"
There was a bit more to Debiedma's message, which you can check out below.
It seems that impassioned message made traveled very far, all the way to the ears of Reggie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo's American division. His response [
via Kotaku]?
"
I love passionate Smash fans. We’ve been in this social competitive space for a long time. Smash Bros. Melee has been a mainstay in the competitive gaming space for a long time. What we’re doing—and our take on his space is we want to encourage the community. We want to enable them to put on tournaments and to have fun and for the players themselves to participate in these types of situations. That’s our view of this space."
In short, professional and aspiring
Smash Bros. gamers are going to have to organize themselves. Fils-Aime countered that he wasn't entirely sure of what kind of support Hungrybox was referring to. Kotaku then followed up with Debiedma, who stated that he and the rest of the
Smash movement want Nintendo to support the fighting game the way that Capcom supports
Street Fighter.
They want an official eLeague and to have their tournaments shown on TV the same way that
Injustice 2 is getting a big push from NetherRealm.
Fils-Aime then responded that Nintendo supports
Smash through its relationships with tournament sponsors like
EVO and
Battlefly but that the company's stance is that they're against starting a Nintendo sponsored competitive eLeague as they view
Smash as a communitty-driven game. Disappointing news but hardly surprising as that has been Nintendo's view for a number of years. What it will take to change their mind is anyone's guess.