Grouping up the Melee and Brawl communities?

[Bacon&Eggs]

It seems like on every stream or Melee facebook group I'm in, there's a discussion about how Melee players should respect the Brawl community because "we're all smashers." But this is the way I see it: I play Melee. That is the game that I play. Brawl is a different game. Just because the two games happen to be in the same series does not mean their communities should be grouped together.

Even though the game I play is also in the SSB series, I think demanding that I respect the Brawl community is like demanding that I respect the Call of Duty or Unreal Tournament communities. They play a different game!!!

While I think it's messed up to boo during Brawl tournaments or something, I am of the opinion that Brawl is a game that should only be ever played on a party level, and I honestly just have no respect for it as a serious competitive game. I understand that Brawl players are people and I will give them the same basic respect that I give to anybody, but I still think the fact that that game still has tournaments in the year 2014 is a big joke, and I shouldn't be forced to change this opinion just because my game is in the same series as it.

I've heard people say that the Brawl community has "supported" the Melee community and that we should be grateful. Could anyone actually refer me to instance where the Brawl community has "supported" the Melee community? I don't mean this in an argumentative way because I honestly don't know.

I want to stress that I'm not trying to start a Melee vs. Brawl debate. I stated my opinions on Brawl to get across the point that I consider it to be a different game than Melee. I don't care whether or not you agree that Brawl is a bad game. I am only interested in why people feel the need to group our two gaming communities together.

And yes I am aware that there are people who play both Melee and Brawl. In addition to Melee, I really enjoy Minecraft, but that doesn't mean that the Minecraft PVP community should be grouped up with the SSBM community.

 

[lordvaati]

I've heard people say that the Brawl community has "supported" the Melee community and that we should be grateful. Could anyone actually refer me to instance where the Brawl community has "supported" the Melee community? I don't mean this in an argumentative way because I honestly don't know.

Breast cancer drive.

 

[K.Louis]

I've heard people say that the Brawl community has "supported" the Melee community and that we should be grateful. Could anyone actually refer me to instance where the Brawl community has "supported" the Melee community? I don't mean this in an argumentative way because I honestly don't know.

A lot of Brawl players donated to get Melee into Evo at the Breast Cancer drive last year which started the new "golden age" of Melee that we're getting into. I considered Brawl being brought along to MLG as the favor being returned but the Brawl community just got shafted on that one.

The Brawl community owes the entire existence and architecture of their competitive community to Melee, while Melee owes it's biggest tournament series, Apex (which started as a Brawl major but has more or less made Melee it's main event), and all of it's exposure and professionalism to Brawl. Regardless of both communities perspectives on each other's games they're a lot more connected than most will want to admit.

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

There's a difference between merging the two communities and the both supporting each other. If anything, the past few years should have demonstrated that we more influential in numbers and there's no good reasons for the communities not to support each other. You don't have to like Brawl, but people in the Melee community should still support Brawl community and vice versa. Here's a list of reasons as to why:

1. Building good community experience for everyone. Brawl and Melee are often both featured in large tournaments and people respecting each other leads to better tournament experience for everyone. On the the second point...

2. Better experiences in the community lead to growth. It's disadvantageous to be narrow sighted. People playing Brawl now may switch to Melee, and vice versa. There are also people who enjoy both games. So why not build unity?

3. Communities supporting each other means larger influence in total. Without the Brawl community's support (Smash community as whole actually) we would've never raised enough awareness (Facebook poll) and money (Cancer drive) to make it to EVO. If we hadn't made it to EVO, Melee would not be in MLG and would be still having the "grassroots" status. Not to mention the massive overflow of new players entering the scene as a result of publicity.

4. Both communities are related and have share some history. Competetive Melee resulted in competitive Brawl while Brawl again raised awareness of Smash as a whole and eventually brough new players also to Melee scene.

tl:dr Everything is related, have respect.