The hit fighting game of this year, Dragon Ball FighterZ, is running into some issues recently in the esports world. Major tournaments such as EVO Japan and (most recently) Anime Ascension are not running tournaments for the fighter, leaving speculation as to why:
Due to unforeseen circumstances, Dragonball FighterZ will no longer be run at Anime Ascension. We’re sorry for the inconvenience/disappointment! Please stay tuned for future announcements. pic.twitter.com/lLsUxQKicx
— Aksys Games (@aksysgames) December 21, 2018
Many fans seem to be pointing the blame at Toei, the license holder for Dragon Ball. For those that aren’t aware of how protective Toei is, the company once had Japan’s Embassy write a note to Mexico’s Government to prevent an illegal broadcast of Dragon Ball Super from being publicly displayed in Mexico. So the possibility that Toei could be putting the breaks on non-official Dragon Ball FighterZ tournaments to protect their IP, is not surprising.
What’s interesting is this is all happening in the midst of the Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour, Bandai Namco’s official esports tour for the fighting game. That tournament series itself is getting some flack due to the fact you need to win a Dragon Ball in the tournament to qualify for the finals. That would be fine if the fact that player Kazunoko did some gatekeeping and won four of the possible seven. This resulted in now four last chance qualifiers happening simultaneously to get some players to fill the finals.
The fact that tournaments are being shut down left and right, it makes me wonder how much longer will Dragon Ball FighterZ have a competitive scene. And with Arc System Works games like Granblue Fantasy Versus and Kill la Kill The Game: IF on the horizon; I wonder if competitors are going to hop off the nimbus and pick up another anime fighter.
Dragon Ball FighterZ is still listed as an event at Combo Breaker, but we’ll have to see if that tournament follows the same fate. In the meantime, Dragon Ball FighterZ is currently available on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, and Xbox One, and you can check out the DualShockers review. If you aren’t too concerned about the competitive scene, you can grab the game on Amazon now.
DualShockers has reached out to Bandai Namco, Arc System Works, and Aksys for comment.
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