The official lineup for EVO 2019 has been announced, showcasing what games will be played during the world's biggest fighting game tournament. Expected titles such as Street Fighter V, Soulcalibur VI, and Dragon Ball FighterZ are there, but many will likely notice the lack of Super Smash Bros. Melee, which has been a mainstay and viewer favorite since 2013. In its place is the newer Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which allows for a new generation of players to take the stage. You can also expect to see Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st], BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, Mortal Kombat 11, Samurai Shodown, and Tekken 7. EVO 2019 will occur this year from August 2-4, at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas.

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[Exaltys]

Conspiracy theory: Nintendo paid them to take Melee out.

 

[duwen]

Conspiracy theory: Nintendo paid them to take Melee out.

That's not really a conspiracy - it's been no secret that Nintendo have been trying to get Melee pulled from tournys since Brawl.

 

[Satellizer]

 

[Xalusc]

No Melee... no Guilty Gear...
Meh.

 

[Enkuler]

That's not really a conspiracy - it's been no secret that Nintendo have been trying to get Melee pulled from tournys since Brawl.

The best way to achieve this is to make a Smash game that isn't shit, so apparently they didn't try hard enough before Ultimate...

Now on topic, I'm kind of mixed about this.
If Melee has to go one day, then today is probably a good day now that we have another good Smash game to play (not counting unofficial games).
...But does it have to go? People say "it's broken" etc, well yeah, guess what, that's exactly why it's interesting to keep it, it's something really different to play and watch than all the well-coded games. And why would there be so many Street Fighter clones (exaggeratedly derogatory on purpose) in this tournament and only one Smash(-like)?

 

[DRAGONBALLVINTAGE]

Well, it was about time. Melee was the equivalent of the Dragon Ball Z nuts always playing Budokai 3.

Fixed

 

[dAVID_]

Not to mention the hand injuries.

 

[KingMuk]

RIP Melee 2001-2019

Spoiler

AND

 

[Txustra]

Finally.

 

[DarkKaine]

Melee not being at EVO doesn't mean it's dead in the slightest. CEO and Big House along with many others are still hosting and streaming Melee events.
It has successfully survived Brawl and Smash 4. Since there is still no good followup or replacement for Melee why would people switch?

Now let's look at the other side of the spectrum:
Brawl? Dead.
Smash 4? Dead.
Melee? Players continue to be passionate about their game. Hell the game got back into EVO a couple years ago because the community raised the most money for a good cause and then proceeded to break viewercount records for a fighting game stream.
The audience that plays the newer games don't even care about em because they just hop onto the next installment whenever it's out effectively killing a scene day one, or they just switch to Melee.

I admit that Ultimate is a much better game than the previous two, but with 100ms input lag effectively halfing your reaction time it just feels atrocious for many people to play.
Nintendo still has the worst online matchmaking in history and 2 games being heavily criticized for it isn't enough for them to do something about it.

Meanwhile, guess who's playing Melee online through Dolphin with so little input lag that it feels like it's offline at the cost of absolutely nothing?
There's a ladder and tons of discord servers where people can gather and play. Tools are being actively developed to help improve gameplay, fix controller issues and increasing the visual quality when streaming. There's a full replay system in the works which will be used to preserve matches and they can be played back in Dolphin. The next step is online play with Wii's.

Does this sound like Melee is dead?
As long as Nintendo keeps making GameCube controllers the game is here to stay. Fans are too dedicated to ever let it go and rightfully so. It's the Super Street Fighter II Turbo of Smash.

 

[guisadop]

finally! a game that's almost 20 y.o. shouldn't be getting that much tournament support anyways

 

[DarkKaine]

finally! a game that's almost 20 y.o. shouldn't be getting that much tournament support anyways

By that logic nobody should be playing soccer anymore either because it's over 3000 years old.

 

[IrishMelody]

Melee finally bit the dust, huh? It was only a matter of time. It is a buggy GameCube game after all.

 

[Darth Meteos]

Here's a hot take that's been going around. It says pretty much everything anyone can say about the situation.

 

[AdenTheThird]

It's not Melee...
and it never will be...

 

[Paolosworld]

I guess it makes sence but dammit.
Melee is sooo fun to watch!

 

[zekeb13]

Time changes and we have to move on from old a$$ games!
I’ll miss it and I get people will too but get over it and stop acting like you’re going to die.

 

[FAST6191]

Just because a game is old does not mean it should be dropped, I would say even from a setup like this.

One should drop a game because it fails to either provide a spectacle (you are not necessarily finding the best players as much as making video entertainment) or ends up having to be house ruled into oblivion to get anywhere. Oh hello ssb melee, why are your ears burning?

I should also say on the controller thing then were there not chips made that could reliably and cheaply replicate the effects of the sought after controllers? If it is within factory/in the wild parameters then what do you care if it is "original" or not? But no the purist nonsense won out.

 

[DarkKaine]

Just because a game is old does not mean it should be dropped, I would say even from a setup like this.

One should drop a game because it fails to either provide a spectacle (you are not necessarily finding the best players as much as making video entertainment) or ends up having to be house ruled into oblivion to get anywhere. Oh hello ssb melee, why are your ears burning?

I should also say on the controller thing then were there not chips made that could reliably and cheaply replicate the effects of the sought after controllers? If it is within factory/in the wild parameters then what do you care if it is "original" or not? But no the purist nonsense won out.

Maybe it's too early and I don't get what you're saying but if enforcing a ruleset is bad then you can take off ultimate as well. All smash games are nonsense with stock rules and default stages without bans.
As for controllers you can use whatever you like as long as you're never using macros. I do think it's bullshit however that people are allowed to mod their controller like drilling out the shell to add 8 more angles for the stick to easily snap into. As seen here : https://i.imgur.com/2miESB5_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium But only because you'd have to pay someone a good amount of money and you can't easily do it yourself. Kadano is making a killing selling all these modded controllers.

 

[FAST6191]

Controller wise I was going off previous discussions I have seen. I have not kept up with smash brothers in recent times though as it went from amusing watching the failures of people that seemingly did not know the first thing about tournament design to just plain sad.

House rule wise I am OK with a few as no game is ever likely to arrive with everything on/nothing beyond the pareto frontier, but the extent which smash brothers tournaments have gone to make it a completely different affair to that which the plebs on the street enjoy (I loved that video where they got tournament people to not do something boring like final destination and how the moving stages messed them up big time). This is before we get into the rules endlessly changing as people figure out counters to what were once dubbed overpowered/unbalanced characters or items -- if they wanted to bundle it under ensuring a spectacle then I could have some respect for that but they always seem to want to go for fairness which irks me when they proven flat wrong some months down the line.

Had a look at the modded controller services you mention from that guy. Most of those appear fairly within the remit of a vaguely competent owner of a screwdriver, rotary tool/needle files, set of basic measurement tools and a soldering iron, to say nothing of being able to unscrew and fire off to a person with a nice CNC machine. That said seeing such things I reckon tournaments should probably provide controllers within parameters, and maybe allow some practice. The additional rest/location slots thing I would agree should be outside the scope of a tournament effort if you are disallowing macros.
I am curious though. Price wise that is coming close to what I would normally expect custom work to go for, and why I have seldom bothered to do anything for games (why make nothing from gamers when I can sell stuff to gearheads for lots) as it is way beyond anything my market research said people are likely to spring for. Mind you I can't be bothered to deal with tournament/competitive play people.