Microsoft has purchased Smash.gg, according to the banner on the front page of the platform’s website. As many of you know, Smash.gg was originally founded to help TO’s run better tournaments for the casual and competitive Super Smash Bros. scenes. Today, they support over 6000 active event organizers across hundreds of different titles, and it’s being used for everything from local get-togethers to major international competitions.
“Since we started in 2015, our goal has been to build active esports scenes around the games people love to play. Today we’re excited to take the next step in that journey by joining Microsoft to help strengthen our existing relationships and explore new opportunities. Smash.gg will continue as a self-service esports platform available to tournament organizers from all game communities.”
Online tournament platforms have seen a big surge in usage since the pandemic started. The Smash community, even with it’s terrible netplay, has had to move almost all of it’s weeklies, monthlies and majors online. Microsoft clearly seems to have picked up on this trend, however, it’s unclear what their intentions are for the platform. It may simply be that Smash.gg will be wrapped up into MSN’s new esports hub as a way to enhance the functionality of the site.
So what does this acquisition mean for players?
With Microsoft buying Smash.gg it should hopefully give a shot in the arm to the fighting game community, which still makes up the majority of the platform’s activity. It’s now in control of undoubtedly one of the community’s most popular tools for setting up its tournaments. There’s also an opportunity down the road for better integrations with Xbox Live and the entire Microsoft ecosystem. Imagine being able to enter tournaments straight from your console!
And for Organizers?
Not a lot is likely to change right away. However, with the added support that this acquisition brings, we can expect that the developer team will start to roll out many of the features that TO’s have been asking for. Features such as mobile seeding, org profile pages, event waitlists and more, are all things TO’s have been asking for months to help them run better events.
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