In what is undoubtedly the most head-scratching decision in the recent history of organized fighting game tournaments, it appears that the Esports World Cup, a Saudi Arabia funded esports event, will not be streaming the Esports World Cup Last Chance Qualifier for the Street Fighter 6 portion of their tournament, and in fact, won’t be streaming Street Fighter 6 at all until the top 8.
As succinctly expressed in the tweet above, the opinion on this is extremely negative to say the least. The Esports World Cup is a $1,000,000 prize tournament for Street Fighter 6, and thus many of the world’s best players will come out of the woodwork for a chance to win that huge amount of money, including EVO top 6 finalists like Endingwalker and Nemo. The slight hint of desperation is what makes these games so nerve wracking, especially for something like a Last Chance Qualifier where players who are hungry to make the main tournament have to struggle against a bevy of other hugely qualified opponents just for a shot at the money. The IRL streamers at the event aren’t even allowed to record the matches on their own time for… no reason, apparently.
Even Arabian pro players like BigBird have expressed disappointment with the way this tournament is being handled.
It should be noted that the blowback to this decision has largely been lamenting the state of the fighting game community, the fighting game community has hated the concept of “esports” ever since its inception and introduction to the scene, with esports being overproduced with no care given at all to the actual scene, and now to them that same concept is robbing them of even watching high quality matches that is the entire point of a massive tournament like this.
That’s to say nothing of the fact that the Esports World Cup is funded by Saudi Arabia, which many players do not care for to say the least, but that’s an entirely different conversation. Suffice to say that the entire community breathed a sigh of relief when it was discovered that the third annual EVO tournament wouldn’t be taking place in Saudi Arabia.