Major League Gaming
Major League Gaming, often abbreviated as MLG, is a professional American gaming league founded in 2002, dedicated to competition in console gaming. Headquartered in New York City, the league has had some interaction with the Super Smash Bros. series, with Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl having to appeared on their brackets.
Involvement with Super Smash Bros.
In addition to Gideon selling the Smash World Forums to the organisation, two games of the Smash series, Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl have been part of previous competitions. In addition to giving more recognition to the two games, some Smashers from the MLG scene later became celebrities in their own right; Ken Hoang, for instance, credits the league with helping him pay for college, and he has since appeared in other television shows.
Melee was added to the circuits of MLG in 2004; it was retired in 2007 due to declining interest in Melee with the development of Brawl underway, as well as an increasing focus in the MLG to seventh generation consoles. Adding to this, an increased independent tournament scene began developing, which sometimes undermined the MLG's own tournaments.
In 2010, Brawl was added to the MLG circuits, as a replacement to Melee; this inclusion, while not as popular as the Melee scene, did lead to Brawl experiencing a similar surge in popularity. Despite its popularity as an "alternate" fighting game, the MLG later removed Brawl for the 2011 Pro Circuit; reasons have been debated, though common theories include dwindling attendance (the MLG Raleigh tournament, for instance, only attracted 148 singles entrants); growing interest in grassroots tournaments; a lack of sponsors (most notably Nintendo's refusal to let MLG livestream Brawl events); and that two of the most well-known Brawl players, Mew2King and ADHD, were found guilty of bracket manipulation at its October event in Washington, D.C.
Neither Melee nor Brawl returned for MLG events in 2012 or 2013. Furthermore, on 27 November 2012, MLG sold the Smash World Forums to AlphaZealot through his company Xyelot LLC, in a move that was viewed by some smashers as an attempt to even further the separation between Smash and MLG.
Towards the end of 2013, it was suggested that MLG might include Melee at MLG Anaheim 2014; Brawl was also considered, as well as Super Smash Bros. 4, if the game was released by the tournament date; Project M, however, was said to be unlikely to appear even if the other three games appeared at the tournament. While it was stated that Melee will "very likely" be included in the tournament, no information was given as to whether or not Smash games would continue to appear in MLG tournaments after Anaheim's event.
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