Game Xcape Tournaments: What's In Store

First off, I would like to thank everyone that came out to the Late Night Game-A-Thon and kept us busy all night! It was well worth it and got us some invaluable information on what you guys want from us.

So J.P. and I have been talking about what's next for the tournaments that Game Xcape hosts. We will still host our regular tournaments for the time being, but we have something bigger in store that we want to try out.....



A tournament season.

What does this mean exactly? Well, we are going to run one specific tournament for a single month for three weeks. Each player will earn a certain amount of points depending on what place they finish. After the three week period, the top 16 players will be invited back on the last week of the month to find out who is the best for that season!

You don't have to show up for every tournament, but keep in mind that those who do show up for all of them have the greatest chance of being invited to the Final Tournament.

Now, since we are treading new ground here, we are going to try it with one game first. Depending on the popularity of this season play, we might transfer it over to other game tournaments we hold.

And the game we decided to try first is.....................Super Smash Bros. Brawl, 1v1.

It's on like....! Well, you know.

Now if you aren't a Brawl player don't worry, we haven't forgotten about you. We we still have tournaments for other games too. You can skip to the part entitled Regular Tournaments if you'd like.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl Season Play
Since Brawl has had the highest turnout for the tournaments we host we figured we give you Brawlers the first try at this new style we are trying out.

Now what I need you Brawlers to do is vote on which month you would like the season to take place. Your choices will be May or June. That will give us plenty of time to set this up and work out the kinks and give you guys plenty of time to practice. Also, vote on  if you would like to see a 2v2 season play for Brawl as well later on in the year.

The polls will be on the home page on the sidebar as always. The season month poll will run through April 15th and the 2v2 poll will run through the end of April so make sure you get your votes in! You guys decide this stuff so if something ends up the way you didn't want it and you didn't vote, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Now keep reading cause there is still some stuff for us to go over.

Regular Tournaments

Now for you non-Brawlers out there, not all hope is lost. Right now we will still have regular tournaments for Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Super Street Fighter IV, and Call of Duty: Black Ops.

For now Halo Reach is in limbo unless we can get some new blood in, but don't count it out (All of you! Invite your friends that suck!).

Remember Halo tourney fans: Spartans never die. They are just Missing in Action.

And as always, we will take suggestions for new tournaments to hold. I know we got the new Mortal Kombat  coming out soon and we all know that Activision will release some new Call of Duty at some point.

Now, when the season play is going on we will not run regular tournaments. This will allow us to keep our focus from being split and attempt to bring you the most entertaining and competitive tournament we can. But, the month after the Brawl Season, expect a tournament for MvC3, SSFIV, and CoD: Black Ops. So you guys all have plenty of time to practice your combos and tomahawk throws.

And Black Ops players, we will have a poll for you guys as to what tournament you want. 1v1, 2v2, or both. So go to the homepage and cast your vote as always. You will have till the end of April to cast your votes.

New Rules for Everyone

Now since these tournaments are becoming more and more of a norm, we will have new rules in place that will apply to everyone. I will set up a separate page with all the rules and info later on for once everything is in place. For now, here is some of what we do have:

- All tournaments will be Bring Your Own Controller (BYOC). We will inspect them so don't bother with your modded controllers and rapid fire ones. If you have any skill you shouldn't have them anyways.
- Controllers have to be name brand. The only exception are fight sticks and game pads for fighting games and those will be inspected as well.
- If you forget your controller, you can borrow one from the store. We will require your I.D. and a small deposit that will be refunded to you once we receive our controller back.
- All tournaments will be held on Xbox 360's. So if you are used to another console, either buy a controller converter cable or come in and play on our systems in the store to get accustomed to it. This of course doesn't apply to console specific games like Smash Bros.
- For all tournaments there will be an entry fee (Fee TBD). The only exception to this will be the final tournament of the season play since the top players will be invited on behalf of the store.

We heard you fighting fans. Fight pads and arcade sticks will be allowed.

Like I said, these aren't all of the rules that we have and these are just rules that will go for every tournament we will host. We will also post tournament rules for each specific game once we have those figured out and it will probably be based off of MLG rules.

Final Thoughts

Well there you have it folks. I hope you are all excited for what we have in store for you cause I know we are. Make sure you tell everyone you know and have them come out and participate or spectate. There are some amazing matches that happen and you know we can all use the fans!

Also, if we don't hold tournaments that you guys want to do, you can always do them yourself! Come into the store and reserve the TV's for whatever game tournament or event you want to hold with your friends. Who knows, maybe if you have enough people show up to it we might add it to the ones we host! How else do you think all of this got started?

And as always, we are open to suggestions, so feel free to talk to us in the store, on our Facebook page, or even here on Game Sponge. Just because we are the guys behind the counter and doing posts on here and Facebook doesn't change the fact that we are Gamers, just like you.

See you at Game Xcape!