It’s smart of Nintendo to realize that the main reason for the popularity of “Super Smash Bros” can be traced back to its competitive nature, and it’s great to see the company fully embracing that fact and showing their support for the competitive community of one of their most popular games. According to a recent report, the company has offered their support for Apex 2015, a three-day tournament that focuses on “Super Smash Bros” on several different platforms.
In particular, gamers can go against others in “Super Smash Bros” for the N64, “Super Smash Bros Melee” on GameCube, “Super Smash Brawl” on the Wii, as well as of course the most recent addition to the series, “Super Smash Bros” on the Wii U. According to reports, Nintendo will be sponsoring the event, after they have partnered with Apex 2015 for the organization of this year’s tournament.
This is a big step forward for Nintendo. The company was originally not so fond of major competitions for its games, going as far as trying to block the playing of “Super Smash Bros Melee” two years ago at Evo 2013. The event was pretty major in gaming news, and drew a lot of negative attention to the company. Nintendo tried to explain their stance with some rather illogical statements, drawing even more criticism, and in the end, the situation died down.
Now, it seems that the company has decided to reverse its negative stance on competitions, and is actually going towards complete support of such events. Which is certainly great not only for their fans, but for the company itself – the main reason “Super Smash Bros” is such a big name in gaming is the fact that the game lends itself to competitive gameplay very strongly, and has become a very popular title among hardcore gamers. By trying to shut this down, the company was basically shooting itself in the foot.
On the other hand, by encouraging the growth of competitive communities for their games, Nintendo can greatly extend the lifespan of titles like “Super Smash Bros”, and ensure that gamers will be talking about them for years to come. This isn’t just a good way to increase profits in the immediate term – it’s also a fantastic way to establish a loyal following of fans for the future, and ensure that whenever a sequel in the franchise is released, there will be a lot of eyes on it.
And it’s true that right now, attention towards “Super Smash Bros” is quite high, and if a sequel did get announced at some point, it would stay in the headlines of many publications for many weeks, without Nintendo even having to put any effort into its marketing.