User:Monsieur Crow/Challonge



Challonge, officially stylised as Challonge!, is a website intended to provide players a method to form brackets for tournaments related to video gaming. In addition to other fighting game series, tournaments for the Super Smash Bros. series of games have seen use of Challonge; in recent years, Challonge's use has increased, with more tournament organizers preferring it to TioPro.

Overview
Challonge allows users with an account to create brackets for tournaments; although intended for fighting games and large events, Challonge's various options can allow it to be used for a large variety of applications. Challonge can allow users to select single-elimination, double-elimination, Round Robin, and Swiss-style tournaments, as well as perform automatic seeding and allow players to register by email. Prior to the start of tournaments, organizers can also adjust the bracket as to include byes or swap the position of players on the bracket.

When a tournament is in progress, organizers can update the bracket in real time; in addition to recording the results of various sets, organizers can also mark whether or not a match is in progress.

Brackets can be viewed by anyone who has a link to them. As tournament organizers can update the bracket at any point, the bracket also updates in real-time, allowing spectators to immediately view potential results in matches.

Relevance to the Super Smash Bros. series
Challonge was initially given little attention by the Smash Bros. community, owing to the greater prevalence of TioPro; in addition to being more familiar to most tournament organizers, Challonge's introduction coincided with the peak popularity of competitive Brawl, where TioPro allowed users to upload results directly to AllisBrawl.

As Melee began its resurgence in the competitive community, along with the rise of Project M, Challonge gradually became more popular, owing to its independence from AllisBrawl; additionally, Challonge was viewed by some tournament organizers as being easier to use than TioPro, as well as requiring only a web browser to use.

Adding to the aforementioned changes in popularity, Challonge also allowed players and spectators to view changes in the bracket in real-time, rather than having to wait for the entire results to be posted online. Owing to the greater prevalence of live videofeeds being posted online by services such as Twitch, the real-time factor of Challonge made it more desirable to tournament organizers, as to allow spectators from outside of the event to more easily follow developments.