The Big House 5 – The Event That The Super Smash Bros. Community Built
As another year in the competitive Super Smash Bros. scene draws to a close, the latest installment in it’s premiere tournament series arrives as well. Over 2000 gamers from all across the globe will be competing in Super Smash Bros. Melee and the newest game in the series, Super Smash Bros. For Wii U. It will be taking place at the Royal Dearborn Hotel in Michigan at exactly 11:00 PM (PHT).
With 1317 entrants for Super Smash Bros. Melee, 512 for Super Smash Bros. For Wii U and a 24-hour venue, the event is set to be colossal. Not counting Evolution 2015, as it was a multi-series event, this turnout means that it will be hosting the largest Super Smash Bros. Melee and the 5th largest Super Smash Bros. For Wii U tournaments of all-time.
For those unfamiliar with the games or the scene, watching the community-sourced documentary will give some perspective about why Melee in particular has lasted for over 15 years. It covers the rise, fall and subsequent rebirth of the scene and the stories of it’s figureheads.
A Community Effort
Unlike most eSports titles, Super Smash Bros. has never had any overarching organization to provide it with support. Starting with Super Smash Bros. Melee in 2001, the competitive scene has relied only on itself with regards to everything from tournament organization to media coverage. Most top-level players do not make enough money to have it as a sustainable career. In fact, many of them have day jobs in order to pay for their travel and tournament costs.
Aside from support by Major League Gaming early on in the lifespan of Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, every single aspect of the scene has been “grassroots” or community-managed since the start. Organizations like Cloud 9, Team Liquid and Team SoloMid as well as gaming events like Dreamhack have only recently been putting in work towards the scene by sponsoring players or featuring the series in their events.
The Big House 5 is no exception. Whereas other premiere tournaments have gone the “eSports” route and secured corporate sponsorship from Nintendo and the like, the event remains grassroots thanks to the efforts of head organizer Robin “MIOM |Juggleguy” Harn. Taking inspiration from Dota 2‘s Compendium system, the event has succeeded in expanding itself through the use of crowdfunding.
Since Super Smash Bros. itself does not feature any incentives towards contributors, the community took it upon themselves to provide them. From wristbands, shirt and posters to actual training from professionals and podcast appearances, all of the aforementioned were made by community members in order to reward backers for their donations.
Raising $36,450, the raised funds make it so that the event becomes bigger and better. Among the reached goals include a $12,000 pot bonus split between all of the games, tickets for 6 players to go to the event, an 8 team Melee Crew Battle between various regions and a mini-documentary to name a few.
Crowdfunding is nothing new to the Super Smash Bros. community. In order to secure a slot at EVO 2013, fanbases from different games had to battle it out in a donation drive for breast cancer. A close fight was had between the Skullgirls and Melee communities but the latter eventually won out in the end raising over $94,000.
A Global Affair
As stated above, Super Smash Bros. doesn’t have the eSports framework that many other games have. In order to compete, players travel from city-to-city, state-to-state and in this case, country-to-country just to compete in the games they love. While Super Smash Bros. For Wii U has online multiplayer functionality, the community in general frowns upon it due to lag and the preference of playing opponents face-to-face. Super Smash Bros. Melee on the other hand, was released more than a decade ago and before the era of online fighting games. Therefore, even with it’s large online presence on sites like /r/smashbros and Smashboards, the Super Smash Bros. Melee scene has all of it’s tournaments offline.
A total of 15 non-USA countries will be represented and aside from the Compendium flown-out players Mustafa “mYi | Ice” Akcakaya, Javier “Javi” Ruiz and Yuta “Abadango” Kawamura from Germany, Mexico and Japan respectively, everyone else are attending out of their own pocket or through miscellaneous sponsors.
Unfortunately, the 2nd best player in the world, William “TSM | Leffen” Hjelte, will not be attending the event due to him being denied entry by US Immigration. He joins APEX 2015 champion, Kevin “EG | PPMD” Nanney and Kevin “CLG | PewPewU” Toy, in the list of the top players not able to participate.
The event itself will be live streamed on VGBootCamp, ShowdownSmash and TourneyLocator. Below is a schedule in Central Standard Time as to the time periods it will be streamed. Keep in mind that CST is directly inverse to PHT. Therefore, 11 AM there is 11 PM here.
Stay tuned here on Inquirer eSports for more The Big House 5 and Super Smash Bros. coverage. The series will now be covered here at a regular pace.
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