During the final bracket broadcast for Smash Summit 13, Beyond The Summit announced its team would be changing how the Summit voting process works moving forward.
This decision to change how voting works was made after extensive talks with members of the Super Smash Bros. community and top players from both Melee and Ultimate in hopes of making the system more accessible for the community and less stressful for those looking to campaign.
Smash Summit events have become famous over the years for its voting process, which allows players who meet certain notability to opt-in and run campaigns within their communities to try and raise money in exchange for votes. However, the system is turned into a “raising the bar” process as players are eliminated live at set times, leading to collaborated “spirit bomb” drops to try and game the system and a lot of salty players/community members.
The highly competitive nature of Summit voting has only continued to expand over the years, with some of the most recent events setting prize pool records for both Melee and Ultimate, almost entirely on the back of voting. And, as a result, many players have complained about it being unsustainable for smaller players and communities or causing burnout as the process of campaigning can be overly taxing.
In response to this feedback and internal conversations, BTS has decided to make significant changes to the overall voting procedure and structure with four main goals in mind:
- Provide more ways for the community to participate.
- Take the focus away from a large number of votes coming from fewer people.
- Improve the competitive field of players.
- Create an overall less negative and exhausting campaign experience.
More details about these changes will be shared in the near future, but BTS and its team want to confirm and implement this updated voting for Ultimate Summit 5 and Smash Summit 14.
