This Short take is about an event that happened quite a while ago but is still incredibly important to the competitive gaming world, or at least for the super smash bros competitive scene. The big event was Apex 2015, the biggest smash tournament ever. What makes this event so important, even to people who aren’t fans of Super Smash bros was that the tournament was sponsored by Nintendo and Amazon, which further legitimizes e-sports and signals their growing popularity, even in a game that wasn’t intended to be a competitive fighting game like Super Smash bros.

The tournament Apex had a rocky start when parts of the venue were showing structural damage and then when the fire alarm went off on the morning of the tournament the fire marshal declared that the venue couldn’t host the tournament because of how poorly equipped the venue was to host the tournament, including dangerous amounts of plugs being used from one socket. A new venue was quickly found with the help of other sponsors of the tournament and all of the set ups for the tournament were moved that day to a new location in New Jersey.

Another important thing to take from Apex was the coverage of the events by sources like Redbull which covered the above events, http://www.redbull.com/us/en/esports/stories/1331702598722/apex-2015-the-tournament-that-almost-wasn-t, as well as advertised the tournament in general, http://www.redbull.com/en/esports/stories/1331701013809/apex-2015-continues-search-for-best-fighter. When you think of Redbull you probably picture the energy drink and somebody doing insane stunts on a motorcycle or in a car, but they also have been getting really involved in the competitive side of games and have their own site dedicated to e-sports. Redbull focuses on some of the bigger competitive games like League of Legends, Smite and Dota 2, but still does its best to talk about the smaller competitive scenes. E-sports have been fighting for legitimization since they first became a thing since many people don’t see these games as any kind of “sport” but they are at least competitive and people work hard when they practice for these games. Super Smash bros is certainly not the biggest competitive game but the fact that even it is getting publicity makes me hopeful for the future of competitive gaming.