Another blow has been delivered today to Project M, the popular modification for Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the third iteration of Nintendo’s fighter, dropped a lot of the gameplay features that made its predecessor such a wildly popular competitive title. Project M, released in 2011, was designed to tweak and rebalance Brawl, making it better suited for competitive play. The modification became a huge success, gaining traction at numerous tournaments and within the competitive Smash Bros. community at large.
But Nintendo, which once shunned the competitive scene, has recently worked to make amends with the Smash Bros. community, throwing its support behind big tournaments like the Evolution Championship Series. And questions have long abounded regarding the legality of the unlicensed Project M and its place in the scene.
Now, arguably the biggest streamer in Smash Bros., VGBootCamp, will no longer host or support Project M competitions. It is even scrubbing videos featuring Project M from its YouTube archives.
In explaining the decision, owner Calvin “GimR” Lofton spoke to the “uncertain legality” of Project M. Given the resurgence of Melee in the fighting game community and the arrival of Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Wii U, the risks associated with supporting a modification such as Project M were greater than ever, Lofton said.
Lofton also pointed out that he and his growing stream simply lack the financial resources to deal with potential legal issues, making it a wiser choice for him to exit now.
This latest setback likely won’t be the last for Project M. Still lacking official support from Nintendo, the mod’s developers took to Twitter to acknowledge the loss of VGBootCamp as a platform for broadcasting the game.
As Project M emphasized, there are still plenty of popular Smash streamers who carry and support the mod. But this is undoubtedly a blow to its potential moving forward.
Image via Wikimedia
Published: Feb 6, 2015 12:07 pm