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Street Fighter Competes for License

Street Fighter is heading back home to the streets where it was created — Japan. Gaming developer Capcom announced that it would be bringing the Street Fighter tournament to this year’s Tokyo Game show and be a premier event for the Campcom Pro Tour.

 

The tournament, featuring a $90,300 prize pool, will allow players to compete for a chance to earn a Japan eSports Union (JeSU) pro player license. Players will receive the license for finishing in the top 8 of the tourney. While the prize pool is by no means a spectacle as many other tournaments offer well into the millions, it is a game-changing event for the Japanese developer and gaming companies alike in Japan. The tournament is the start of sidestepping the gambling laws by offering license exemptions to players that would work around the Japanese gambling laws that placed a $895 cap on cash prizes for any event work to sell products, making the tournament one of the firsts to exceed the previous cap using the exemptions.

 

Japanese liaison Alex “Vayseth” Varga said in an interview, “You could see sponsored prizes in the form of flights to majors…but there were not many events, if any, that offered actual cash for winning. To my knowledge, that was limited entirely to some mobile games and card games like Magic: the Gathering.”

 

Street Fighter joins TEKKEN and Call of Duty: World War II as the first games to offer large cash prizes in tournaments arranged by organizers. The opportunity to offer such a high cash payout in Japan has allowed Capcom’s Pro Tour to follow through on promised intents offered to investors early in 2018. CEO Kenzo Tsujimoto called 2018 in letter to its investors “Esports Year One” and later would seek to develop the esports world further in japan in a financial report.

 

“Having official licenses and regulatory bodies in place makes it easier for sponsors to come on board as it becomes a less risky investment for them,” said Varga. “The fact that Capcom is cooperating with the Japanese government and Tokyo Game Show to make all of this happen confirms that, at least for SFV, esports are here to stay. Without Capcom’s support and approval, absolutely none of this is possible.”