A couple of weeks ago, Juan “Hungrybox” Debiedma, a pro Super Smash Bros Melee player ranked in the top three, recently criticized Nintendo in his victory speech at a Wisconsin tournament called Smash ‘N’ Splash 3. He said that “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 who support this league, the amount of people who want this to be a lifestyle for people. This is not just a video game. This is a lifestyle! All right?”
Well, Reggie Fils-Aime was able to listen to this speech after Kotaku played it for him, and he had a response. Although Reggie highly suggested that Nintendo simply doesn’t want to do a league, he did take a moment to discuss how much Nintendo has reacted to the Smash Bros. competitive scene and what it means to them:
I love passionate Smash fans.
I will say this. Five, six, seven years ago, as we engaged with our developers and talked to them about Smash Bros. and what was happening, there was not a lot of understanding about this space. And it’s been people like [Nintendo of America’s] Bill Trinen and JC Rodrigo and all of these folks who understand the space that have helped us educate our company and educate our developers around the benefits of engaging with the community and empowering and enabling this to happen.
It was with the most recent Smash Bros. that we’ve done more tournaments and we’re supporting both the Melee community as well as the Smash Bros. Wii U community and they’re both vibrant and are continuing to grow.
It’s community-oriented. It’s enabling the community to drive it forward. We have relationships, obviously, with entities like Evo and Battlefly. We want to do this much more at a grassroots level than others’ visions around leagues and big up-front payments and things of that nature.
||Arrogant foolish child…||
Arrogant?
This fan have some problem. Melee is a lifestyle. I laughted at the first time, but after 10 seconds I say, a lifestyle?
How is this any different from being a fan of a sports team?! If this fan has a problem, then 90% of mankind has a problem. I agree this is crazy, but you can’t say he’s anymore crazy than the rest of us!
The term lifestyle let me think: oh it’s a new day, let me play melee for 16 hours. That’s crazy. Lifestyle meaning this is what you do every single day.
Look I personally love Nintendo games, and when I play it I play for about 2-3 hours and sometimes I want to play it much more time, but I open my eyes and see there some real thinks to do instead of play videogames.
That’s what I think, but I am a simply gamer who loves play videogames when I have free time, but leave school or work or anything else only for playing a game that’s absurd to me.
That’s F’d up! Like a father not acknowledging his successful sports star of a son lol
Smash Bros. is a lifestyle?
That guy needs help.
why though?
he quitted his job, stopped studying and now dedicates 100% to tournaments. Fun part is, he makes more cash than he did before on his old job, all that by basically playing what he likes
Doesn’t make it a “lifestyle.”
It makes it a really fun job.
Ignorance is a bliss. Hold that L while Hungrybox makes more money than you ever will.
Also, traveling every weekend and signing contracts with brands and etc IS a life style. it completely changes how he goes around his every day life.
This shouldn’t even need to be explained lol
“Also, traveling every weekend and signing contracts with brands and etc IS a life style. it completely changes how he goes around his every day life.
This shouldn’t even need to be explained lol”
Except he didn’t say “pro gaming is a lifestyle”. He said this video game was a lifestyle. If you’re going to be condescending, your explanation should at least be on the same topic.
This is why I can’t get into competitive gaming, these people take it WAY too seriously.
Nah, it’s probably because you’d get bodied and can’t git gud.
More like it requires too much time and effort on a specific game and I would get sick and tired, and maybe even despise the game after playing for so long.
Personally I don’t understand Melee fans. I never played Melee but I saw some videos on youtube, but the fact is:
Why these guys want Melee on each Nintendo Consoles?
Melee is an old game (I think a videogame released in 2001).
And also these fans take to seriosly Melee. This is lifestyle. Say what?
Also Nintendo have to think ahead, not to go back.
I would think having melee on the switch wouldnt be the worst idea. QoL changes and such.
I really think QoL changes could generate complains
better leave them as it is
That’s true. I liked the little things they added with mario kart 8 deluxe so I would love to see what they could do with other games but thats a valid point.
Maybe what I’m writing now is wrong. But why having an old smash like melee?
I saw some fans of melee completely hating Smash 4, but still I don’t understand why.
I think its the way the game plays. Feels perfect to them.
Feel perfect to them, but a game with full of bugs it’s not ok.
The thing with Melee is that it’s very different from other Smash Bros titles, it is played at a much faster pace and it’s age has allowed it’s strategy and meta game to develop throughout the years. It isn’t so accessible nowadays, copies of the game exceed $80, and it requires a CRT television to be played properly. Simply porting Melee to other consoles would eliminate those issues.
If fans want it so much I think Nintendo allow to play it thorugh the VC of the Switch.
I don’t think you actually can understand if you haven’t played the game for yourself. Melee is a game that most of it’s competitive players grew up with and in turn have went and made a career out of it in competitive gaming. Nintendo re-releasing Melee wouldn’t be “going back”, in fact it’d probably be one of the biggest progressions they could make in recent years. It shows that Nintendo truly knows about its consumers and what they want. All of them, not just some of them.
In fact I don’t understand because I never played it.
Ok if you say re-releasing Melee wouldn’t be going back that means Nintendo have to release the game on the Virtual Console of the Switch, so people can play it anywhere and anytime.
I like how he used his victory to call out Nintendo. In a way, he’s right to call it a life style since it’s quickly becoming a sport in it’s own right. Like any other sport, the guys that play said sport do view it as a lifestyle choice. Wrestlers, especially! Also racers & American football players who continue in spite of the dangers of such a sport! In fact, as hardcore gamers, some, if not many, of us have chosen video games as a life style choice, too.
Honestly, for once. I actually like what Reggie said in response to this. *claps*
Since I was a kid, I never have cared about competitive gaming. Except maybe for trying to beat my siblings in Mario Party etc. But I’ve never cared anything about competing against strangers, or entering tournaments. I find that pointless.
Well, I wouldn’t say pointless. Not only can it be fun and allow a field of encounter from stranger to stranger – which usually leads to bonding, as I realized myself – but there’s also so much more behind that. It’s like any type of confrontation: memorizing your adversary’s patterns, thought-processing, adapting to it and find an effective way to defeat whatever’s thrown at you, anticipating, faking movements, all of this in yes, a virtual battlefield, but it requires that your hands and mind move at an almost robotic speed to keep up, and when you manage to do that, AKA overcome everything thrown by your opponent, the satisfaction you get from it is, well, pretty darn amazing. It also requires a lot of focus, and being in that state is quite something to experience. Not just for games, it’s a generality.
It’s especially amazing when whoever you’re up against understands it as well.
Not saying that I agree with the lifestyle thing, but I wouldn’t call tournaments or competiing against strangers pointless. It is, of course, my take on the matter.
This guy is seriously delusional. He says “acknowledges us but refuses to push us” almost with a sense of spite. NOBODY OWES YOU ANYTHING. Nintendo is not in the pro gaming business, and their target demographic has little to do with pro gaming. There is absolutely no reason to expect them to support your esport, regardless of how legitimate it may be. If they were to support smash competitive, it certainly wouldn’t be Melee, which has extremely little profitability for the company.
Take Magic the Gathering as an example. Legacy and Vintage are formats dominated by cards that can never be reprinted. Wizard’s of the Coast keeps rules and banlists going for those formats, but all their real tournament support goes to formats that they actually sell cards for, because of course it does.
And people say the Melee community isn’t cancerous.
||We found the missing Meleelots…||
People say that? Because an, they are XD It’s usually the case with competitive-driven things though.
Not sure what Reggie is saying but that Melee player can go get fucked for having the balls to suggest Nintendo owes him anything other than a well made video game for the amount her paid to buy it.
God those Melee fans are cunts. Jesus chist.
I think about how Nintendo can generate business out of it…. So far I can’t . I mean if Nintendo see there is no appeal in this esport than it make perfect business sense not to support it fully . What Nintendo doing like Capcom with street fighter is the minimal syndicate by acknowledge it and give some products which allow such events to last for years. If Nintendo was involved they will dictate how such event should be organised impose some stupid rules and at the end he will complain that Nintendo don’t give them freedom.
Sounds like this guy is a lunatic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS4pqr0_qYI
(Too bad Skeet fell off of the map shortly after this movie. Same for Neve Campbell once the Scream movies ended & sadly Scream 4 didn’t really help her make a comeback. Sadly, only David Arquette, Courtney Cox, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, Jamie Kennedy, & Liev Schreiber moved on to moderate or high success. Drew Barrymore & Henry Winkler were already mainstays in Hollywood at the time of Scream, so they didn’t need Scream to launch their careers. ESPECIALLY Henry Winkler who made the Fonz a household name. And Drew getting killed off at the beginning is what sent Scream into the stratosphere as no one expected it since everyone thought she was gonna be the heroine of the movie. …and I ended up rambling..! lol)
Her name is Courteney.
Oh. Well 5 points will be taken from Wikipedia for not having the right spelling of her name since I was lazy & just copy & pasted the names I recognized from their site. lol
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Why does Nintendo have to acknowledge or support any of the leagues or tournaments? If the players involved are having fun and Nintendo isn’t suing anyone it should all be fine and dandy. But “lifestyle”? We need to remember at the end of the day that these are still video games. While we may devote a lot of our time and money to them it’s not a lifestyle, it’s a hobby and entertainment source. They need to stop being butt-hurt about Nintendo’s lack of involvement and support. Get on board with Smash U and you’ll probably catch their attention more. I love Melee as much as the next guy but I also know when it’s time to move on from a particular game in a franchise.