Evolution Championship Series, or Evo for short, has for decades been considered one of the most prestigious and important tournaments in the competitive fighting game community. But since February of this year, it’s begun to serve another purpose: helping to whitewash the atrocities of the brutal Saudi Arabian monarchy.
Qiddiya City, the still-developing state project envisioned by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman as a key part of his overall goal of improving Saudi Arabia’s reputation on the global stage, announced its acquisition of Evo in February. And while the Saudi government has been involved with Evo since 2024, first as a global partner and then as partial owners, this feels like a new era for an event that has largely shifted away from its beginnings as a grassroots celebration founded by pillars of the fighting game community into a corporate asset purpose-built for changing hands between esports organizations, investment groups, and, at one point, Sony Interactive Entertainment.
“Evo is a global gaming institution, built on community, competition, and creativity,” said Qiddiya Investment Company chief strategy officer Muhannad Aldawood. “[W]e are committed to supporting Evo’s long-term growth in a way that respects its heritage and strengthens its role within the global Fighting Game Community. This is about investing in the future of play, and safeguarding what makes Evo special.”
The outcry in the fighting game community was loud and immediate (and sometimes pretty funny) despite these promises. Saudi Arabia has spent the last several years investing in video games as part of a larger campaign to paper over the country’s human rights abuses. By hosting fighting game competitions, it seems like the Saudi royal family intends to use competitors and personalities as makeshift propagandists to make them look good to audiences abroad, much like they have with golf tournaments, professional wrestling shows, and comedy festivals. It comes as no surprise, then, that some high-level fighting game players have been silent while the community’s hobbyists and weekend warriors scream their frustrations into the void.
“It’s largely business or ignorance at the crux of it,” eight-time Evo champion Dominique “SonicFox” McLean told me via email when asked about the incongruity between these two groups. “I don’t really blame them. It is life changing money in an esport that is not used to that amount. That, or they aren’t very informed on why having government entities enter esports is a bad thing.” It’s McLean’s hope that fighting game players don’t take their frustrations out on less engaged peers, adding, “the community is better united together if we continue to inform one another.”
McLean has never been shy about using their platform to speak their mind. Success has afforded the self-proclaimed “Black, queer furry who will mix your shit in fighting games” the opportunity to, for example, endorse Bernie Sanders for president after winning an official Mortal Kombat 11 tournament and call out right-wing bigotry during an acceptance speech at The Game Awards. McLean is one of the most talented competitors the fighting game community has ever seen, so much so it’s rare for an Evo to go by without seeing them on stage collecting at least one gold medal, but they’re also one of the few top players willing to speak up about Evo’s new owners.
Evo’s acquisition won’t keep them from reluctantly attending the organization’s events in the United States and Japan, McLean explained, citing personal goals, responsibilities to sponsors, and not wanting to be “erased from the scene.” Instead, they’d rather “win an event and use that platform to speak out against it.” But McLean also doesn’t plan to travel to Saudi Arabia any time soon for obvious reasons.
“I am very much against their rulings on LGBTQ+ folks and I don’t wish to be a part of their sportswashing attempts,” they said. “I think it’s unsafe for folks like myself and others to attend, and I wish more were vocal about their laws over there. No amount of money will ever make me go over there until there is massive change in their laws there.”
Christopher “ChrisCCH” Hancock, on the other hand, plans to stick to his guns despite already paying a price for his convictions.
When he and his teammates team won Street Fighter League Pro-US in 2024 and received invitations to the Saudi Arabia-funded Esports World Cup the following year, Hancock relinquished his shot at the tournament’s million-dollar prize pool. Speaking to me, the Street Fighter 6 player explained he couldn’t attend the event and feel good about himself when many of his loved ones are “the same people the Saudi government would rather see dead.” Hancock also said skipping Esports World Cup “effectively ended” his career in fighting games, as several teams who were interested in sponsoring him due to his respectable top 32 performance at Capcom Cup 11 immediately terminated those conversations following his decision.
“I do not plan on attending any Evo events for the foreseeable future,” Hancock said, while also admitting the choice to sit out is easier for him than for other top players as he’s never relied on fighting game tournament winnings as his sole source of income. “I would be happy to one day attend grassroots events in Saudi Arabia if given the opportunity. I’ve heard nothing but positive things about the community from those who have visited. However, given that I have previously criticized the Saudi Arabian government, I would not feel safe visiting the country given the way that the government currently operates.”
Shortly after Evo’s acquisition, the organization announced its intentions to vastly expand its reach over the next four years with new events in Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Morocco, Mexico, and China, in addition to maintaining extant tournaments in the United States, Japan, and France and fulfilling a 2026 stop in Singapore planned pre-buyout. While great for the people who live in those countries and haven’t been able to travel to Evo in the past, some argue having so many branded events on the calendar could cheapen what it means to be an Evo champion, not to mention choke out unaffiliated competitions that don’t have access to the massive bankroll of the Saudi government.
Hancock’s message to the fighting game community in light of these developments is to continue supporting local, grassroots tournaments, since “they will be in the community long after Saudi Arabia leaves it.” Thankfully, it’s easier than ever for an aspiring player to find an event in their area thanks to an initiative by commentator David “UltraDavid” Graham to build a global database of independent competitions.
“I have two primary concerns with Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the fighting game community,” Hancock said. “The first is that, now that they own so much of the ecosystem, they can censor anyone they please. If they want to ban someone for speaking out against them, they can do that. If they want to control how SNK designs their games, they can do that. My second concern is that the ecosystem is quickly becoming reliant on their investment. If they one day decide to cease their involvement in the fighting game community, it would cause a huge shock to the entire community. I hope that those currently receiving huge amounts of money from Saudi Arabia, such as Evo, consider this possibility when planning for the future.”
Evo will also be without one of its most prominent on-air talents. Stephen “Sajam” Lyon has been a mainstay of Evo finals broadcasts for the past 11 years, and he’s been able to parlay this familiarity into a successful career creating content as a fighting game community personality. But when Saudi Arabia bought partial ownership of Evo, he described the situation as “only a matter of time” in a post on X, before adding in a follow-up message that “it feels like the pieces [of the community] that belong to fighting game fans are shrinking all the time.”
Lyon further addressed the situation, as he often does, during a personal Twitch stream last December. Despite working for fly-by-night esports organizations, United States military recruitment campaigns disguised as fighting game tournaments, and crypto-funded events throughout his career, he felt like he had to draw the line at accepting money from Saudi Arabia.
“They’re not investing in these things because they just believe in them,” Lyon said. “It’s sportswashing to gain social capital.”
Lyon did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The fighting game community has struggled through this identity crisis for almost two decades. Is it better for its most important competitions to be organized by passionate caretakers at the expense of massive prize pools, or should they succumb to the garish world of corporation-backed esports to ensure the survival of a professional caste above everyone else? So far, it’s managed to straddle that line in such a way that participation and viewership only continue to go up, with new blood steadily replacing the trickle of old heads leaving out of frustration with the community’s direction, but it was always building to a moment like this.
McLean, Hancock, and Lyon should be commended for standing up for their beliefs, but they’re outliers. It’s too little too late. The same trends that allowed the community’s biggest stars to build careers out of their love for fighting games also laid the foundations for Evo’s eventual sublimation by the most noxious sectors of capitalism. The competitors and personalities of the fighting game community are going to be forced to choose between doing business with the vicious, repressive Saudi Arabian monarchy and potentially giving up on their dreams. It’s a hard ask, the kind we’re all faced with every day as we try to survive in a world that feels less and less hospitable to normal folks. At the end of the day, it’s about what you feel comfortable supporting, not only with words but actions as well. Sometimes that means turning your back on an institution when it’s lost its way.
