The donation drive to determine the eighth fighting game at this year’s Evo 2013 World Championships ended on Friday afternoon, Singapore time, with Super Smash Bros. Melee (SB) taking the top spot with US$94,672 of donations, beating out Skullgirls at second place (US$78,760) and Super Street Fighter II: Turbo HD Remix (ST) at third place (US$39,567).
In total, over US$220k was raised by the fighting game community over the course of January, and all of the money will be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
Evo organisers had announced the donation drive earlier in January, giving members of the community a chance to select the eighth game to be included in the competition line-up. Together with SB, the full list of official games at this year’s tournament are as follows:
- Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition 2012
- Ultimate Marvel VS. Capcom 3
- Street Fighter X Tekken
- Mortal Kombat 9
- King of Fighters XIII
- Persona 4: Arena
- Tekken Tag Tournament 2
- Super Smash Bros. Melee
I was following the donation drive using this online tracker during its final hours on Friday afternoon, and there was an amazing, last-minute surge of donations starting from 12pm, Singapore time (the deadline was scheduled at 4pm, Singapore time). Before 12pm, ST was actually at second place with US$39k+, behind SB’s US$51k+, with Skullgirls trailing at third place with US$35k+.
That’s right, within four hours on the final day, both the SB and Skullgirls communities donated over US$80k+ of money combined. The late surge from Skullgirls allowed it to overtake ST by almost double the amount of money, but it was still not enough to dethrone SB as the latter’s donations went past the US$94k mark.
This donation drive shows just how important the Evo Championship Series is to the fighting game community, and how passionate they are to see their games represented in the tournament. For those of you who donated, give yourselves a pat in the back. You just raised over US$220k for a good cause.
The author donated to Melty Blood Actress Again: Current Code, which incidentally, also saw a late surge of donations in the final hours, jumping from US$80 to finish at US$683.
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