Author: Franz "d3v" Co

With this year’s Evo Japan in the books, people are now looking forward to this summer, and Evo in Las Vegas, naturally. For those eagerly awaiting news on what’s in store for the stateside Evo, the wait will soon be over. Tonight, at 6:00 PM Pacific, the official Evo 2018 announcement show will take place on the Red Bull Esports Twitch Channel. The show will be hosted by Mark “MarkMan” Julio, and Joey “Mr. Wizard” Cuellar.

The show itself is expected to cover the seven main stage games that will playable at Evo 2018 later this summer. This show will also likely address other questions, such as whether or not there will be some form of “peoples choice” donation drive again this year, for fans to get their favorite game on the roster. Watch it at 6:00 PM PT below!

Watch live video from redbullesports on www.twitch.tv

Source: MarkMan (Twitter)

Fighting games as a legitimate competitive venture has grown a lot over the past decade or so. We’ve gone from holding events in arcades and function rooms, to having some of our biggest tournaments in arenas and dedicated esports venues. While the FGC still isn’t as big as other esports genres, we’ve gotten big enough that we’re getting a fair share of much-welcome mainstream attention.

That said, with this kind of growth also brings with it another form of attention: that from government regulators. Now, government regulation itself isn’t bad per se. In fact, it can be welcome when it comes to dealing with thing such as international travel, or deterring shady individuals or organizations. However, the problem lies when regulators simply lump everything together without taking into consideration how each genre’s competitive scene works.

Now you may be wondering why I’m writing this, and not someone like David “UltraDavid” Graham. Well, it’s because this is something that my own local community and I are currently dealing with. Recently, the Games and Amusement Board (GAB) of the Philippine government issued a resolution (Resolution No. 2017-21) that is meant to regulate esports in the country. The resolution covers a number of subjects, the most important of which are in regards to “professional” players in the country, and their need to apply for a two-year license.

The ruling was made mostly with MOBAs such as DOTA2 and League of Legends in mind (though even then, that has caused some controversy with the former’s developer, Valve). As such, a quick look at the regulations shows just how they don’t really work with how fighting game tournaments are run.

The regulations for players required that anyone joining a tournament with a prize pool over PHP 10,000 ($197, or about the price of a tournament-level arcade stick) has to register as a “professional” with the GAB. This includes a PHP 800 ($16) fee, and some drug tests.

Now, the problem with this when it comes to fighting games comes from the fact that not everyone who joins a fighting game tournament is a professional player. Even for major tournaments, which in our case would be Rev Major (a Tekken 7 World Championship event) as well as my own Manila Cup (which is part of the Capcom Pro Tour) the majority of competitors are amateurs. Most people going to these events are just there for the experience, as well as to reconnect with other people in the community.

The requirement is now for these amateur players to register as “professionals.” The registration fee itself costs more than half of what it takes to register for Manila Cup, providing a substantial financial hindrance (especially for a third world country). In addition to this, going by the usual method of taking prize pools from registration fees can easily put smaller tournaments over the PHP 10,000 limit, affecting them as well.

Now, this isn’t the only problem in the new regulations. They also state that anyone attending a tournament outside the country also needs to register. This means that it’s also a barrier for anyone looking to attend Evo, or any similar event abroad.

Fortunately for us, the GAB acknowledged that there was room for improvement with the regulation. A meeting was soon set up in late January (right before Evo Japan) between the GAB and some of the heads of the community. While I’m not at liberty to disclose what was discussed during the meeting, long story short the issues have seemingly been resolved, and again allow the fighting game community do what we’ve done for years now. That is, offer tournaments where anyone and everyone can join, regardless of a player’s status as a “professional” or “amateur.”

The lesson here, then, is that government and other regulatory bodies will eventually try to get involved, and that there is the risk that they won’t necessarily understand the fighting game community well enough to create legislation that makes sense for us. With this in mind, we in the community — whether or not we’re leaders, tournament organizers, or simply just the average player — should be vigilant when it comes to spotting careless regulation, vocal in pointing it out, and cooperative when the chance comes to fix said regulation.

GAB Resolution No. 2017-21 c/o Ren Vitug

Some time ago, we ran a story on the possibility that Nintendo’s online service for the Switch would not launch until Fall; now, it seems that that will come to pass. The Kyoto-based company has announced that Nintendo Switch Online is launching in September 2018.

While the Nintendo Switch has had games with online play (including fighting games such as Ultra Street Fighter II and ARMS) it has long lacked a dedicated, subscription-based online matchmaking and communication service in the vein of Xbox Live or PlayStation Plus. Nintendo Switch Online aims to rectify that, though it does come with one caveat: it requires a smartphone. Features such as voice and text chat, as well as lobbies on Nintendo Switch Online, will require a separate app that players have to download to their phone.

As for the subscription fees, as previously reported, subscribing to Nintendo Switch Online will cost $3.99 per month. However, players who subscribe for multiple months at a time can avail of discounted rates — three months goes for only $7.99, and one year goes for only $19.99.

Source: Nintendo

While Nintendo is done with content updates for ARMS, that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped supporting the game. Case in point: the game has just received a new patch that adds two new modes, on top of a few fixes.

ARMS‘s version 5.1 update brings with it the new a “Gallery” and “Tournament Mode.” Gallery mode is pretty straightforward. It lets players view illustrations that they can unlock using in-game currency. Tournament Mode, on the other hand, is designed — as the name states — for tournament play. Here all ARMS are unlocked for players to use. While in this mode, players cannot participate in a Grand Prix, nor can they earn in-game currency. Switching between “normal” and Tournament Mode can be done by pressing in the right stick and holding L and R in the Top Menu.

In addition to this, the patch also adds a few bug fixes for some characters. You can check out all of these below.

Source: Nintendo