Tournament licenses are a necessary step in taming eSports' Wild West | Opinion
Rob Fahey
Contributing Editor
Friday 4th March 2022
Capcom
It is a principle previously unstated, I believe, but nonetheless true, that over the course of reading a relatively small number of articles about the eSports sector the probability of encountering the term "growing pains" approaches a near-certainty.
Of all the various corners of the games business, perhaps only virtual reality is subjected to that with even close to the same frequency; but in its current incarnation, VR can make a reasonable claim to being a tween and thus legitimately able to make the growing pains excuse. eSports in various forms and guises has been doing the rounds since the late 1990s; it's fair to raise an eyebrow at the claim of growing pains, when the sector is no longer the industry's stroppy teenager but has rather become the industry's sulky twenty-something that refuses to move out of the basement and still expects its laundry done for it.
The latest tantrum to emerge from this sector concerns Capcom's announcement of a community licensing system for Street Fighter V tournaments -- a fixed contract which it expects the organisers of any small tournament with a cash prize to sign up for. The company's release of the community license has spurred a pretty significant backlash from people involved in the Street Fighter tournament scene (and the usual Greek chorus of social media drama hounds keen to pile onto the villain of the week, whoever it may be), which has ranged from some genuinely legitimate criticisms of specifics of the license, all the way up to daft conspiracy theories that Capcom is trying to kill off the SF5 tournament scene to clear the decks for the launch of the recently announced SF6.
Esports is no longer the industry's
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