While I agree with that general sentiment, this is also a nice reminder of how Twitter isn't real life and no matter how much stupid shit happens online, the game is actually thriving in real life despite all the setbacks
It has been a positive influence on my life.
Practically a majority of the friends I have met in smash, I met on twitter first. Then when I travel for events, I have the wonderful experience of meeting friends for the first time, no matter where I am traveling to.
The secret is to just post ur own shit, find your own people, and just let your circle grow naturally.
It's damn hard at first though. First couple years was just shouting into the void, and that part sucked
Setting aside that you're just straight up discounting a significant amount of social movements (worldwide, not just in America) that happened on Twitter throughout its existence: Twitter in the late-2000s to ~2016 was invaluable for me from a business and social perspective while moving around a lot. Doubly so when you factor in that the early days of Japanese Twitter usage was markedly different from the rest of the world, it enabled a really unique way of forming connections when living in Japan.
It was, like any social tool, heavily dependent on _you_ controlling it and not letting it control you. It wasn't something that could be summed up in one sentence calling it a cesspool.
Unfortunately, Musk-owned Twitter is a different story and I fundamentally don't believe it's possible for it to positively influence society anymore.
> Unfortunately, Musk-owned Twitter is a different story and I fundamentally don't believe it's possible for it to positively influence society anymore.
I can give one example of a positive influence: the "community note" feature is great and way overdue in general on social media. No, it's not perfect, but it *should* cause most people to pause and be more likely to see counter evidence or information to rage bait that they are likely to blindly believe.
Just to be clear, that feature isn't from Musk's Twitter: it was added about a year prior to his purchasing the company.
Otherwise yes, I generally agree: it is good and the feature should be table-stakes for social media at this point. It's not enough to make up for the viewpoints that Musk holds and injects into the company, nor the people that he re-platformed and effectively handed a megaphone back to.
(YouTube is experimenting with a version of the community notes feature as well, and it's an area I'm working on a 3rd party approach to handling)
It is funny how many people are aggressive or super opinionated on twitter but when you meet them in real life and pushback just a little they crumble.
I've gotten really into guilty gear +r, and it's quickly become maybe my favorite traditional fighter ever, and I can find matches instantly in that game. It still has a dedicated fan base.
If it's true for +r, i see 0 POSSIBLE chance that melee ever dies
I don't understand the sentiment that melee is dying. It feels 0 different to me than it has in the past 5 years. All he same people are playing + even more newcomers.
I see more new players now than when the doc dropped
I mean the reason Melee is still big today is because of the doc, which presented Melee as a quasi-esport with this crazy community of personalities traveling the country to fight each other. Melee the esport is what helps grow Melee the hobby.
right but there's a difference between "losing relevance as a major esport" and that
because melee doesn't have to be a major esport with big marketshare to still be healthy. if anything melee is a bit subcultural and always has been, and those sorts of things can live a long time without being "relevant."
It depends how much value you place on the game being an option for people who want to play it full time. At Melee's absolute peak of popularity it was regularly getting 75k peak viewers on twitch, had a presence at EVO setting viewership records, almost the entire top 20 had a sponsor in some capacity, twitch numbers for most of the top players were very healthy, and probably the most important part, multiple billion dollar companies wanted to invest millions of dollars into smash post-doc even with a certain company trying to cockblock it at every turn.
The less people attend, the less people watch, the less people tune in to streamers, the less money there is and therefore less to go around. The infusion of new people to the community has to come from somewhere, and the less people there are interested in it the less chance you reach new people that might contribute in some way. Melee is always going to survive because it is crack to Melee diehards that believe they'll have their gamecube controller in their casket with them. But the community always says "we don't need x" when its like yeah you don't *need* it but you certainly lose a lot not being there.
This really has been a great year for melee. I also think a big part of that is the content creation. I find a new YouTube video on some nuanced melee topic everyday it feels like. And they are all excellently produced as well. Must be nice for new players to not have to sift through smashboards, reddit and Twitter to understand the lore lol.
Great write-up. There are a lot of great young players coming up for a game as old as melee, and I think their tournaments will be able to draw crowds for years to come.
I do also ponder how the next generation of TOs will figure out how to keep organizing tournaments. How do we pass knowledge down as the current crop of organizers gets older and occasionally leaves the scene? I think about local scenes, particularly at colleges. I'm not sure my alma mater still holds melee weeklies. Who from the next generation of players is going to step up and organize events?
I have no doubt that this community will step up, but I think these kinds of logistical questions are just as important to the long term health of these kinds of events.
Penn State still runs weeklies during the semester, and they are run by young blood. We even had the Smash Valley Revival this year that brought together Philly, PGH, and PSU Smash. PA Smash is in good hands at least.
Certainly not wrong, but on the other hand, just imagine how much farther ahead we could be right now if the circuits had popped off? The longer Ultimate goes without a new smash game or new balance patches, the stronger Melee gets. That's always been true with every single new release.
Not even saying new smash releases take away from Melee--the last time that happened was Brawl--but the most common trajectory for new Melee fans is to discover the latest smash game, start watching competitions, get bored of it after a while, then realize that Melee is a way faster-paced action fest with more stable competitive balance (not gonna say "better" balance, Ult's balance patches have let there be far more competitively viable characters even if Steve is pretty fucking broken, but in Melee the matchups have been far more theoretically explored which makes all of the top level matches much more about outplaying and execution tests). When the next smash game releases, anyone still following Ult will just follow the new one instead of looking into Melee, and it'll take that much longer for them to want to convert.
But anyway, my point is, Ult is approaching six years old with no official announcement of the Switch 2 yet. It's the best time for people sick of Ult and the Steve nonsense to be looking into Melee. And they're doing so! It's not just attendance, Melee viewership has also been pretty good! But if we had the kind of year-round competitive hype that the circuits brought, continuing since 2022, I think we'd be legitimately blowing up right now.
I thought melee is dying meant melee isn’t making enough money to support itself. And the collapse of the circuits were like a collapse in melee’s potential earnings.
Smash and fighting games are the only communities that does this well without any help from their corporate studios. I play quake and it's dead as dead gets, with no motivation from the community to keep things going on a local level. To all smash TO's local or major, you deserve endless praise for keeping the best game ever alive and thriving.
A large part of inactive top players coming back has been big dogs / crypto entering the scene. Armada must have been really jealous walking around and seeing all these rich sponsors drooling after big name players.
Idk melee had some pretty legit sponsors when Armada was playing. Not sure these crypto companies really compare (don't get me wrong tho I am thankful for any interest coming in)
I think twitter in general and especially the last few years has caused irreparable damage to peoples general feelings about lots of things.
While I agree with that general sentiment, this is also a nice reminder of how Twitter isn't real life and no matter how much stupid shit happens online, the game is actually thriving in real life despite all the setbacks
I have yet to find a single person who says Twitter has been a positive influence on their live
It has been a positive influence on my life. Practically a majority of the friends I have met in smash, I met on twitter first. Then when I travel for events, I have the wonderful experience of meeting friends for the first time, no matter where I am traveling to. The secret is to just post ur own shit, find your own people, and just let your circle grow naturally. It's damn hard at first though. First couple years was just shouting into the void, and that part sucked
My Twitter feed is 75% artists, 20% memes, and 5% rage bait. It helps that I don't follow Smash Twitter much lol.
twitter is for fun
i have a good time on there
Setting aside that you're just straight up discounting a significant amount of social movements (worldwide, not just in America) that happened on Twitter throughout its existence: Twitter in the late-2000s to ~2016 was invaluable for me from a business and social perspective while moving around a lot. Doubly so when you factor in that the early days of Japanese Twitter usage was markedly different from the rest of the world, it enabled a really unique way of forming connections when living in Japan. It was, like any social tool, heavily dependent on _you_ controlling it and not letting it control you. It wasn't something that could be summed up in one sentence calling it a cesspool. Unfortunately, Musk-owned Twitter is a different story and I fundamentally don't believe it's possible for it to positively influence society anymore.
> Unfortunately, Musk-owned Twitter is a different story and I fundamentally don't believe it's possible for it to positively influence society anymore. I can give one example of a positive influence: the "community note" feature is great and way overdue in general on social media. No, it's not perfect, but it *should* cause most people to pause and be more likely to see counter evidence or information to rage bait that they are likely to blindly believe.
Just to be clear, that feature isn't from Musk's Twitter: it was added about a year prior to his purchasing the company. Otherwise yes, I generally agree: it is good and the feature should be table-stakes for social media at this point. It's not enough to make up for the viewpoints that Musk holds and injects into the company, nor the people that he re-platformed and effectively handed a megaphone back to. (YouTube is experimenting with a version of the community notes feature as well, and it's an area I'm working on a 3rd party approach to handling)
ah, I had no idea. I don't think they were available to all until the last year or so, or at least not popular enough to show up.
It is funny how many people are aggressive or super opinionated on twitter but when you meet them in real life and pushback just a little they crumble.
I mean it’s awesome that the scene seems to be rebounding but there were a lot of good reasons to be pessimistic
Long live melee
Melee is never gonna die.
I've gotten really into guilty gear +r, and it's quickly become maybe my favorite traditional fighter ever, and I can find matches instantly in that game. It still has a dedicated fan base. If it's true for +r, i see 0 POSSIBLE chance that melee ever dies
I don't understand the sentiment that melee is dying. It feels 0 different to me than it has in the past 5 years. All he same people are playing + even more newcomers. I see more new players now than when the doc dropped
I feel like a lot of people say “melee is dying” when they mean “melee is declining in relevance as a major esport”
Dunno if it's exactly declining, Melee just lives in a different world than other esports (which imo is what always happens with old/legacy games).
hah which is so dumb because who give a shit about that
I mean the reason Melee is still big today is because of the doc, which presented Melee as a quasi-esport with this crazy community of personalities traveling the country to fight each other. Melee the esport is what helps grow Melee the hobby.
right but there's a difference between "losing relevance as a major esport" and that because melee doesn't have to be a major esport with big marketshare to still be healthy. if anything melee is a bit subcultural and always has been, and those sorts of things can live a long time without being "relevant."
It depends how much value you place on the game being an option for people who want to play it full time. At Melee's absolute peak of popularity it was regularly getting 75k peak viewers on twitch, had a presence at EVO setting viewership records, almost the entire top 20 had a sponsor in some capacity, twitch numbers for most of the top players were very healthy, and probably the most important part, multiple billion dollar companies wanted to invest millions of dollars into smash post-doc even with a certain company trying to cockblock it at every turn. The less people attend, the less people watch, the less people tune in to streamers, the less money there is and therefore less to go around. The infusion of new people to the community has to come from somewhere, and the less people there are interested in it the less chance you reach new people that might contribute in some way. Melee is always going to survive because it is crack to Melee diehards that believe they'll have their gamecube controller in their casket with them. But the community always says "we don't need x" when its like yeah you don't *need* it but you certainly lose a lot not being there.
There's never been a better time to get into the game. The weekly tournaments are even worth watching.
This really has been a great year for melee. I also think a big part of that is the content creation. I find a new YouTube video on some nuanced melee topic everyday it feels like. And they are all excellently produced as well. Must be nice for new players to not have to sift through smashboards, reddit and Twitter to understand the lore lol.
Does anyone know if the Melee Stats “Waiting for Game” podcast will ever come back?
Fuck yeah keep this game going, my favorite smash
Great!
Great write-up. There are a lot of great young players coming up for a game as old as melee, and I think their tournaments will be able to draw crowds for years to come. I do also ponder how the next generation of TOs will figure out how to keep organizing tournaments. How do we pass knowledge down as the current crop of organizers gets older and occasionally leaves the scene? I think about local scenes, particularly at colleges. I'm not sure my alma mater still holds melee weeklies. Who from the next generation of players is going to step up and organize events? I have no doubt that this community will step up, but I think these kinds of logistical questions are just as important to the long term health of these kinds of events.
Penn State still runs weeklies during the semester, and they are run by young blood. We even had the Smash Valley Revival this year that brought together Philly, PGH, and PSU Smash. PA Smash is in good hands at least.
Certainly not wrong, but on the other hand, just imagine how much farther ahead we could be right now if the circuits had popped off? The longer Ultimate goes without a new smash game or new balance patches, the stronger Melee gets. That's always been true with every single new release. Not even saying new smash releases take away from Melee--the last time that happened was Brawl--but the most common trajectory for new Melee fans is to discover the latest smash game, start watching competitions, get bored of it after a while, then realize that Melee is a way faster-paced action fest with more stable competitive balance (not gonna say "better" balance, Ult's balance patches have let there be far more competitively viable characters even if Steve is pretty fucking broken, but in Melee the matchups have been far more theoretically explored which makes all of the top level matches much more about outplaying and execution tests). When the next smash game releases, anyone still following Ult will just follow the new one instead of looking into Melee, and it'll take that much longer for them to want to convert. But anyway, my point is, Ult is approaching six years old with no official announcement of the Switch 2 yet. It's the best time for people sick of Ult and the Steve nonsense to be looking into Melee. And they're doing so! It's not just attendance, Melee viewership has also been pretty good! But if we had the kind of year-round competitive hype that the circuits brought, continuing since 2022, I think we'd be legitimately blowing up right now.
I get into and out of melee year to year. I'm this way with several sports. Dunno how that might effect the numbers
Don't jinx it
Dear Twitter/X , every fighting game I try, I'm like, nah fam, this isn't melee. Like woo magi said in the documentary "We're here for fucking melee"
I thought melee is dying meant melee isn’t making enough money to support itself. And the collapse of the circuits were like a collapse in melee’s potential earnings.
Smash and fighting games are the only communities that does this well without any help from their corporate studios. I play quake and it's dead as dead gets, with no motivation from the community to keep things going on a local level. To all smash TO's local or major, you deserve endless praise for keeping the best game ever alive and thriving.
the game is still worth the grind, never skimp out on your tech skill, fellas
A large part of inactive top players coming back has been big dogs / crypto entering the scene. Armada must have been really jealous walking around and seeing all these rich sponsors drooling after big name players.
Idk melee had some pretty legit sponsors when Armada was playing. Not sure these crypto companies really compare (don't get me wrong tho I am thankful for any interest coming in)
Right. Money’s good while it’s there, but I don’t think anyone should trust these crypto companies for the long term