Capcom and Twitch have announced a partnership to create the first Street Fighter-focused, year-long fighting game league. Dubbed as the Capcom Pro Tour, the series of existing and new events throughout the year will culminate in a 16-player grand finals during the Capcom Cup in December. League play will begin with Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition 2012, and transition to Ultra Street Fighter 4 when it becomes available this June.
10 of the 16 grand finals slots will be reserved for the winners of specifically designated "premium" events held over the course of the year. Seven such events have been revealed thus far:
- Final Round (March 14~16 – Atlanta, GA, USA)
- NorCal Regionals (April 18~20 – Sacramento, CA, USA)
- Southeast Asia Majors (June 20~22 – Singapore)
- Community Effort Orlando (June 27~29 – Orlando, FL, USA)
- Evolution Championship Series (July 11~13 – Las Vegas, NV, USA)
- The Fall Classic (October 10~12 – Raleigh, NC, USA)
- DreamHack Winter (November 27~30 – Jönköping, Sweden)
The final three premier events have yet to be determined, but seeing as all the currently announced ones are well-established, largely grass-roots founded affairs, it's possible that the yet-to-be-determined ones will be something new altogether. Top 16 finishers at a variety of tournaments, including premier events, will be awarded points, and the six with the most at the end of the season will join the 10 premier event winners in the grand finals. Results from the recently concluded SoCal Regionals will be applied to these standings.
Upcoming ranking events will include trade-shows such as PAX East, E3, and San Diego Comic-Con. Any independent tournament may apply to become part of the Capcom Cup ranking season by emailing capcomprotour@capcom.com, but the criteria for acceptance has not been outlined.
Most interestingly, the press release states the goals of the Capcom Pro Tour as "to provide an infrastructure which helps support tournament organizers, while delivering increased production values, supplementary video content, and new opportunities for players, content creators and sponsors." While this is exciting, it's still unclear what form said support will take.
Does it mean Capcom-subsidized prize pools? Paid pool judges and commentators? These details remain unclear, as do the ways in which Capcom's streaming of the events will impact grass-roots streaming outfits like iPlayWinner, Level-Up Live, and Team Sp00ky. The press release does state that "all premier events retain their independence and core values," but seeing as they'll be streaming Street Fighter 4 matches through the Capcom Fighters Twitch channel, does that mean that other streamers will lose out? We've reached out to Capcom to clarify these details, so be sure to check back in the coming days.
Vincent Ingenito is IGN's third newest recruit, and third biggest MOBA fan. He also doesn't suck at fighting games. To hear him nerd out about them and other games, follow him on Twitter.
Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com
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