Ex-Nintendo employees Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang have shared their thoughts on the potential reasons for why Nintendo has effectively ditched EVO, the world's premier fighting game tournament. Through their new 'Kit & Krysta' podcast (vidcast??), the pair detailed three potential reasons for the move, all of which sound pretty viable to us.
The first is that Sony have purchased the rights to the EVO brand; naturally, Nintendo may see this as a conflict of interest and won't want to get directly involved at this stage.
Secondly, EVO has become embroiled in numerous scandals in the past, perhaps most chiefly related to allegations of abuse by the ex-CEO, which Nintendo strongly condemned.
Finally, Nintendo has partnered with Panda Global to launch its own officially-licensed Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Super Smash Bros. Melee Championship in North America.
It all makes perfect sense to us, and given Kit and Krysta's past experience with the company, we dare say they're in a pretty strong position to give some insight into Nintendo's decision. The company has a rocky history when it comes to officially endorsing Smash's presence at tournaments, and with Sony now owning EVO, it was unsurprising — if still disappointing — for fans to see Nintendo take this stance.
You can watch watch the pair discuss Nintendo's EVO exit below, and remember to check out our interview with Kit and Krysta to find out some background info on their decision to begin a podcast and their plans for the future.
[source youtube.com, via gonintendo.com]
Comments 29
This is what the guys and girls on the comment section said too! Who needs these two!
That does make sense, given Nintendo's culture of protecting their IP
@eltomo these 2 are famous nintendo icons that went independent that have insider info and sources.
Evo staff abused children, We shouldn't question why a company left, we should question why many companies did not left, because they should.
Well there we go then.
@darkswabber and, despite that, the "inside sources" information are just exactly what was logic'd out when the announcement was made. Them saying this isn't confirmation in the slighest, in fact it looks more like they came into the comment section of the NL article and ripped the theories from there.
Razor's edge theories literally everyone said on every single fansite's comment section casually said because everyone instinctively knew the reasons why Nintendo did this transparent and not at all controversial, to everyone outside of EVO staff, move.
This is a pro-company decision, not a pro-customer decision. See, Microsoft making Banjo available for the Nintendo Expansion Pack, or Minecraft on the Nintendo Switch. This is an example of a pro-customer decision. I'm a fighting game player. I participated in official championships. In 1992 I played in the Street Fighter Playoffs in Italy and in 1996 I played to the quarterfinals at World Cyber Gaming. EVO is a HUGE event. I just don't miss one. Taking Smash Bros off EVO doesn't lower EVO at all, but it does affect the Smash Bros franchise. All the games that came out of EVO, lost online audience. Example? Killer Instinct and Granblue Versus. I don't see anything good in this decision by Nintendo, it should make more pro-customer decisions.
The impression it gives is that we do much more for Nintendo than it does for us.
@eltomo don’t watch then but you sound jealous that others have worked to grow a platform while you spent your time just commenting on a websites threads.
@Rykdrew There's no such thing as a "pro customer decision", every corporation's sole focus is profit and share value. Sometimes it might feel like they're being nice to you but they only make decisions because they looked at potential profits and thought it made sense for the company's growth. To think any company ever sacrifices a penny to benefit the customer if they have no plan to at least double the return on that penny is very naive.
Taking away Smash hurts Evo. It's been the most popular game for at least a couple years in a row by a wide margin. That's viewers leaving, which is less ad revenue, which hurts, even if just a little. No way around that.
Smash Ultimate has already made all of its (very impressive) sales. It has no more DLC to promote. It has no reason to be there besides profiting Sony. The only ones missing out are Sony and the fans that wanted to see it there, but they will have opportunities to see it elsewhere.
@SpaceboyScreams
"Sole focus is profit and share value"
This is a very damaging and false way to view the world, and can only be true if each person's only goals are personal profit and desire for power. This is completely untrue, save for the ~1-5% of psychopaths in this world.
@nukatha It's not how I view "the world" it's literally how businesses operate. Even if you have a very selfless CEO he's still at the heel of shareholders. Corporations are not charities. They make things you like to take your money not to be your friend.
@SpaceboyScreams
Correct. That still does not put profit and power behind every action.
That doesn't even begin to cover the full story.
What is the actual profit goal? Maximize profit over the next three months? Next year? Next decade, or the next century?
Short-sighted companies focusing on shorter time frames generally die quickly.
Companies with a longer time horizon end up paying their employees well (to retain the best of them, and foster a sense of community), working to meet the needs and wants of their users, and otherwise treating their customers with respect. (A lot of thisnis straight out of Dale Carnegie, he's a quick read).
The purchaser is the source of all revenue. If you didplease them, your revenue dries up. Consumers, generally speaking, reward companies who provide them with a quality product or service at an agreeable price. A video game company sells the definition of a luxury good that someone has no need of any kind to ever buy. Thinking of a game company as a necessarily hostile relationship between the shareholders seeking to extract money from consumers, and consumers aiming to spend as little as possible simply doesn't work.
In a very real sense, even if profit ends up a large motivator, sound ethics creep their way in.
Who are the shareholders for a company? You find it is a strange mix of people who just want investment returns, as well as "true believers" who hold the business to some greater standard.
Will listen to it later, this isthe sorta thing I'm interested in from Kit and Krysta now that they no longer work from Nintendo
Yeah basically. I was glad to hear their now-free-from-Nintendo perspective, and to remind folks, these two were part of NOA's marketing ground troops for around 14 years each.
As someone commented earlier, a better question then asking "why Nintendo left?" is "why didn't more companies also leave?"
Here's to hoping EVO's gotten better in the time since.
No, it is because Nintendo hates its fans. Twitter says so.
@Rykdrew I can't think of anything the pro Smash crowd has done for Nintendo. Given the horrendous exploitation of children parts of it are responsible for I am not surprised they want to distant themselves from such a community.
The first and third reasons are ones I know but after seeing the second one I can understand the situation a bit more. Also, people say that it's because Sony and Nintendo are rivals but hasn't their rivalry sort of ended? After all Sony did allow one of their games on the Switch.
EVO 2020 was cancelled due to a massive scandal centred arround its CEO with many companies pulling games before the event was cancelled entirely. Sony and some other crowd bought it in 2021 while most companies returned then but nintendo didn't. The Smash Pro scenes no stranger to horrible scandals either.
So I'd imagine nintendo wants to keep it's return to the competition scene under its control.
Tbh wouldn't care myself if never was another competitive smash scene.
Aren't Smash tourneys known for having misconduct allegations among players. Especially in other smaller events. Could be another reason why. Hurts the brand.
Those reasons make sense. Honestly Smash never really fit that well at Evo anyways. It always felt really disconnected from the other championships.
Isn't this just gambling which goes against the kid image they so love, also they probably wanted to use slippi again.
@Rykdrew Nintendo had to of payed Microsoft money to get banjo, and Minecraft is selling millions on switch so putting it on there is a no brainer, Microsoft didn’t put Minecraft on switch out of the goodness of their hearts, they did it so they could charge $30 for the game and it would sell millions
While EVO is a significant tournament to platform your game at, it’s no longer the only one. Smash has always thrived at a grassroots level and will continue to do so imo.
Removed - flaming/arguing
Smash never needed EVO anyway. It was big before being an Evo game and it will still be big after leaving Evo. It would benefit Sony more then Nintendo if Smash remained in Evo.
@SpaceboyScreams No one will miss watching EVO because Smash bros is not there (I know you didn't say that). The Smash Bros Championship was a small slice of EVO. The biggest slice is from Street Fighter. So Smash Bros will be replaced. And that's okay. But I don't see how this can benefit the Smash bros franchise in a future relaunch for another platform. But, I understand your arguments and they make a lot of sense. But the impression it gives is that companies like Microsoft apparently choose pro-corporate decisions that seem to be very close to pro-consumer decisions. And Nintendo, in its choices and decisions, seems very pro-corporate and not very pro-consumer. Of course they're just impressions, and I don't represent anything to Nintendo, and that's how they treat me! Thanks for the answer!
@eltomo smells like someone is a lil bit jelly of their success!
So... much... Kit and/or Krysta...
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