One of the fighting game community's most prolific streamers and commentators has announced he'll no longer be attending EVO following the event's buyout by the Saudi government.
Sajam has served as one of the biggest bridges between the fighting game community and the larger mainstream videogame space over the last several years alongside other figures like Maximilian Dood. His presence at EVO has been a given up to this point, but that won't be the case any longer. In a 12-minute segment from a recent livestream, Sajam explained that he will no longer be attending EVO events after it was revealed in September that the organization had been bought by the Saudi Arabian government.
Preempting that folks might also begin citing that "there's a lotta evil corporations out there," Sajam retorted: "Evil corporations purchasing or owning the things you like always sucks. But the difference, I think, for most people here is the purpose of the ownership and then what exactly they're doing with it. It's not just 'The Saudi government owns EVO', it's like 'The Saudi government owns EVO and lots of other things with the express intention of using these as a vehicle to promote tourism and sportwash.'"
While he reckons it "won't affect EVO at all," Sajam said "It's a pretty big deal for me as a human," calling it "bad for me financially to not attend."
"It means I'm not going to EVO Vegas, it means I'm not going to EVO France. It means I'm not going to EVO Singapore. It means when they open the one up in Saudi Arabia—eventually, I'm sure—I'm not gonna be going to that one," he continued.
I mean, yeah, this whole thing has got to be a pretty big financial hit to him. As Sajam points out himself, he's been rolling with a pretty solid partnership alongside Chipotle—who have been terrorising EVO's in-between match ads for the last couple of years—and stepping away from EVO has a chance of directly jeopardising that.
"The purpose of our events and community is that we are grassroots and we do things in person and the fighting game events and tours are tacked onto what the fighting game community owns," he said.
"Street Fighter has to go to a grassroots-owned event to put the event on their tour. And they own Capcom Cup at the end which we accept and we work with them and that kind stuff. But the equity in the community is built on supporting your own scene by putting money into the organisers and events that are owned by your own community. That's the pillar of what makes fighting games unique and that we're separated from a lot of the problems that other esports scenes have."
Sajam says that he doesn't want anyone to feel like his decision is a guilt trip, though. I'm not telling you to feel bad about yourself as a human. No one gets flamed for going," he said. "I'm personally not going, but plenty of people will. There's plenty of people who don't like the buyout who are like 'Well, I'm still going to EVO. Fuck it.' And I'm sure they'll have a dope time. I'm sure if I went, I would have a dope time."
Ultimately, Sajam's biggest disappointment seems to lie with the developers behind the biggest fighting games. "One of the biggest things that pisses me off about all the buyouts already is that Capcom and their Pro Tour—and so is Tekken, right?—they're pretty deeply interlinked with the EWC [Esports World Cup, another Saudi-owned event] already," he said. "But they're so blatantly cool with just devaluing their own events. There was no fight."
As someone who has been equally frustrated by the Saudi government's encroachment on the FGC—which, as Sajam rightly points out, has always been by the community, for the community—I am absolutely here for significant figures like both himself and Maximilian Dood stepping away from their larger involvement with the event.
It's bound to be a big hit to both of their finances and exposure potential. Taking a stand against sportswashing is the exact kind of stuff I hope and love to see the FGC fighting back on—Sajam using his platform to make his stance clear is so very important, and I can only hope that more prominent FGC folks will start to follow suit.
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