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EVO 2013 smashes viewership records with 1.7 million spectators
This year's Evolution Championship Series, colloquially known as EVO 2013, was the most-watched fighting game tournament ever broadcast through Twitch.tv, according to the streaming site's VP of marketing, Matthew DiPietro. "It was nearly fifty percent higher than last year's EVO, which was the previous record holder," DiPietro said in a statement. "1.7 million tuned in during the course of the weekend." Records for concurrent, game-specific viewership were also broken, with Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 peaking at 144,848 simultaneous viewers. Estimations place Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition and Super Smash Bros. Brawl at approximately 125,000 and 134,000 concurrent viewers each, respectively. Numbers like these, while certainly impressive, aren't all that surprising considering that this year's EVO was easily the most thrilling in the event's 11-year history. With legal drama, release date/DLC/new game reveals and some truly surprising winners at the end of it all, EVO 2013 put on one hell of a show.
EVO 2013 full of upsets and fantastic finishes
This past weekend's EVO Championship Series saw fightin' folks from all over the globe engaged in fierce competition. Check out a compilation of the grand finals for just about each game after the break, along with a summary of who came out on top in games like Super Street Fighter IV AE, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and, of course, Super Smash Bros. Melee.
New version of Street Fighter 4 to be revealed at EVO 2013
A new version of Street Fighter 4 will be revealed prior to tomorrow night's Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition finals at EVO 2013, Capcom announced during its panel at the event. The new version of the game, which will be distributed digitally as DLC as with Super Street Fighter 4's Arcade Edition update, will include five new characters, six new stages and various balance changes. Elena, Rolento, Hugo and Poison will be added to the game's character roster, in addition to a fifth mystery character. The DLC pack will reportedly cost $15 when it launches on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC; a release date will be disclosed in early 2014.%Gallery-193762%
Skullgirls PC debut scheduled for August 22
The Marvelous AQL-published PC port of Skullgirls will be available through Steam on August 22, with pre-orders starting on August 1. The announcement was made on-stream earlier today between matches of Super Street Fighter 4 at EVO 2013 in Las Vegas. If you can't wait that long, $36 will still buy entrance into the game's ongoing closed beta, which also grants access to the finished product when it's released at the end of August. The PC version of the game is said to include improved multiplayer functionality and will eventually be the home of Skullgirls' four new DLC characters.
Here's where you can watch EVO 2013 this weekend
Want to watch top-tier competitors fight it out in Super Street Fighter IV, Injustice, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and other crowd favorites? International fighting game tournament EVO 2013 is being broadcast live from Las Vegas across a trio of streams this weekend, so you don't have to miss a minute of the action. Three main channels will feature different games throughout today and tomorrow: srkevo1, srkevo2, and srkevo3. Twitch offers its own dedicated hub for the event, and if your brain can process all three streams at once, fighting game community website Shoryuken suggests using Multitwitch. The three streams are also embedded after the break below. Finals will be broadcast via the srkevo1 channel on Sunday. The tournament will additionally be simulcast in Japanese, for overseas viewers. A full schedule of featured games is available here.
Nintendo wanted to remove Smash Bros. from EVO entirely, organizer says
Super Smash Bros. Melee's triumphant return to the stage during this weekend's EVO 2013 fighting game tournament was in greater jeopardy than originally thought, according to statements made by EVO organizer and co-founder Joey Cuellar during a recent episode of Live On Three. "They were not only trying to shut down the stream, they were trying to shut down the event, the smash portion of the event," Cuellar said. "It's their IP, they can do what they want and they didn't present us with any options to keep it open." Cuellar added that after negotiations, EVO was able to reach an agreement with Nintendo that allowed Smash to be kept at the tournament, but not broadcast to the rest of the Internet. "We're not going to press it any further, it's their IP," he added, relaying his attitude at the time. "We respect Nintendo's decision to protect their IP, and we're going to comply with their legal department completely." Of course, that compromise was quickly revised after the fighting game community's reaction to the announcement. Cuellar said that no efforts were made on his end after the initial agreement with Nintendo had been made, so its decision to allow streaming for Smash had to have been in response to other, outside factors. "We're super grateful to Nintendo for letting us do it," he said.
EVO 2013 to be simulcast in Japanese
EVO 2013 will be live-streamed with Japanese commentators, courtesy of Mad Catz and Japanese video sharing site Nico Nico Douga. The stream will be free to view on the Nico Nico site. The Japanese iteration of EVO 2013's streaming schedule joins its English-language Twitch streams at srkevo1, srkevo2 and srkevo3, with the full schedule posted below. The Twitch streams come with a $12 premium option that includes ad-free viewing, chat access, exclusive emoticons and video quality of at least 720p, and all of that money goes to the EVO 2013 college scholarship for NYU Game Center. EVO 2013 kicks off on Friday, July 12, and runs through Sunday, July 14. Check out its Indie Showcase lineup here.
EVO 2013 Indie Showcase features Towerfall, Aztez, SpyParty, 6 more
EVO, the annual fighting game convention and tournament, packs an underground punch this year with nine games in the Indie Showcase, bringing in four new titles and five returning champs. The four new games are Towerfall, Treachery in Beatdown City, Samurai Gunn and Super Space ____ (pronounced "Super Space Blank"), and the repeat offenders are SpyParty, BariBariBall, Nidhogg, Aztez and Super Comboman. Towerfall caught our eye on the Ouya, Aztez has been creating buzz around conventions local and otherwise, and SpyParty has a special connection with EVO – its current No. 1 player first saw it at last year's convention. The EVO 2013 Indie Showcase is organized by Nathan Vella, President of Capy Games (Below, Sword and Sworcery), and the entire show runs from July 12 - 14 in Las Vegas. Aaaaand FIGHT.
The top SpyParty player is a fighting game guy from EVO 2012
Four months before SpyParty debuted at EVO 2012's Indie Showcase, convention founder Seth Killian threw down a gentlemen's bet with SpyParty creator Chris Hecker: "An EVO attendee will be your No. 1 player in subsequent tests, and take down whoever the existing top players might be." Hecker took the bet. One year later, SpyParty is on its way to EVO 2013, and Hecker owes Killian a beer. SpyParty is slow-paced for a one-on-one "fighting game," but it requires the same mad obsession with detail prevalent in many fighting games. Players are either the spy or the sniper: As the spy they must blend in with a room of AI characters attending a fancy party and complete tasks unbeknownst to the sniper. The sniper has to spot the human character with enough certainty to shoot it before the other player completes all the tasks. The top SpyParty player in the world is Korey Mueller, AKA "kcmmmmm" (pictured above, standing in the blue button-down), and as a lifelong fighting game fan, it's fitting that he first heard about SpyParty at EVO 2012. Since the convention, Mueller has played 6,436 games of SpyParty and has spent 262 hours in-game, with 1,020 hours total log-in time. The player that comes closest to these numbers clocks in at 5,151 games and 213 hours in-game. After picking out which beer he's going to buy Killian, Hecker asked Mueller about his fighting game roots and how he thinks SpyParty fits into the fighting game community. "There's always this feeling that there's some way I can improve, and every time I meet a personal goal, I find another one," Mueller tells Hecker. "I couldn't really look at the game and decide to be a top player, I just wanted to continue to improve – and at some point, I guess I got pretty decent at it. Now that you mention it, 6,000 games is a lot." Yeah, it is.
Infinite Crisis joins MLG as an official esport
Being in the middle of its first round of closed beta testing hasn't stopped Turbine Entertainment's DC Universe MOBA, Infinite Crisis, from making the grade as an official Major League Gaming selection, the developer announced today in a joint release with the esports organization. MLG will kick off the burgeoning relationship by streaming Infinite Crisis matches from Warner Brother's E3 booth, starting on the morning of Tuesday, June 11, and lasting through the rest of the conference. From there the game will be showcased at various events until it's fully released, at which point it will join the likes of League of Legends and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 in MLG Pro Circuit tournaments. Warner's other competitive DC Universe property, Injustice: Gods Among Us, was recently revealed as an official selection for this year's EVO2k fighting game tournament series in Las Vegas. At this rate, we expect Arkham Origins' rumored multiplayer mode will soon be announced as an event in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games.
EVO 2013 charity drive raises over $200,000, Smash Bros. Melee final game selection
EVO 2013's charity fundraising competition for the benefit of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation has come to a close, raising an astonishing $225,744 for the cause. The Super Smash Bros. Melee community, having raised the most money out of the competing groups ($94,683), will have its game of choice featured as the eighth official EVO 2013 tournament selection.Of course, reaching the fundraiser's herculean total required the efforts of fighting game communities from all walks. Skullgirls faithfuls piled up $78,760, for instance, while Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo devotees brought in $39,567.The full list of contributors can be found after the break, and while not every community was able to reach a five-figure sum, every bit matters in the fight against cancer. Good game, everyone.
Skullgirls PC moving forward through new deal with Marvelous AQL
Development of the long-awaited PC version of indie fighter Skullgirls is set to begin in "the coming weeks," thanks to a funding/publishing deal between existing publisher Autumn Games and Japanese publisher Marvelous AQL.The agreement, which is in its "final stages" according to Peter Bartholow, CEO of developer Lab Zero Games, will allow Skullgirls to be ported to the PC with "expanded multiplayer functionality" as compared to the console version. Bartholow expects the porting process to take "around four months" to complete, with more information regarding the port's new features, as well as details on a public beta, to follow as development progresses.Meanwhile, Skullgirls' quest to raise the most money for breast cancer research (and therefore become the eighth official EVO 2013 selection) continues. Limited edition posters (left) are now available for pre-order, with 50 percent of all sales going directly to the fundraiser.
First seven EVO 2013 games announced, eighth game determined by charity drive
When it's time for the year's Evolution Championship Series fighting game selections to be announced, normally the process shakes out like this: A post goes up on Shoryuken, the fighting game community cheers and/or jeers for a while, and then everyone gets back to practicing. This year, however, things are a bit different.Seven games have been announced as official selections, as per usual: Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter X Tekken (ver. 2013), King of Fighters XIII and Persona 4 Arena. The eighth game shakes up some paradigms, being selected through an ongoing charity fundraiser for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.Basically, players donate money to the BCRF in the name of whichever game they want to see in the final slot, be it Dead or Alive 5, Darkstalkers 3, Capcom vs. SNK 2, or any of the 13 other eligible titles. Whichever game's community raises the most money for charity before the end of this month will be selected as the final, official EVO 2013 selection.Donation links can be found here, so if you want to forcefully subject people to a global MLP: Fighting Is Magic tournament, you can do so for a good cause.
