Rebrand Announcement and FAQ
FINAL UPDATE
Aaaand we’re live! We want to officially welcome you to the new Start.gg!
See? Pretty cool, right? Plus, if you haven’t noticed, we didn’t just update our name and logo — we also enhanced the overall experience by adding some new features! We can’t wait for you to experience the new Start.gg.
NAME REVEAL
If you have been following us on Twitter you may be aware of our April Fool’s joke about renaming the product to Microsoft Brackets 365, but we are coming clean. We aren’t going to rename the product to Microsoft Brackets 365 .The name is . . .
Yup. Not a big change really, eh? Same number of letters, starts with an S, has an A in the middle. We know, kind of boring, right? Well, a name is just a name. We could have created some crazy new name that was a curious portmanteau, missing essential vowels and riddled with hype, but really, why? In the end, it’s not about hype. It’s about community. And we believe that the most basic concept in the gaming community is the concept of starting. Everyone has that moment what you start playing a game, when you start entering tournaments, when you start streaming, when you start organizing tournaments, when you start a pro career, or when you start to make gaming your way of life and start making money supporting the community that you love. We can’t imagine a better name than start.gg, and our associated social brand, Start Gaming. We hope you like it.
Feature Sneak Peek
And we have another sneak peak at a new feature. We know that you can’t start competing if you can’t find an event to compete in, so we have been working on making the best possible experience for search and discovery of events and other content related to the games you love. Here’s a screenshot:
We are making it easier to find events that matter to you, and we are adding in new content related to those games and those events. We want start.gg to be your homepage for gaming. We will provide news aggregated from thousands of sources around the web, and livestreams and VOD from Twitch, Facebook Gaming, and YouTube. We also have been hard at work creating personalization algorithms that understand the games and content you love and personalize your homepage to give you exactly what you want.
Launch League
We are also thrilled to announce that we are kicking off a series of sponsored events to celebrate our launch! We are partnering with Panda, CEO, Combo Breaker, VoiD, Sajam, and other amazing partners to up the excitement at existing events and introduce some new ones. Our friends at Xbox Game Pass are also running events for Gears, Halo, Forza, and other Microsoft Studios titles. It’s just our way of saying thank you to the communities that have been loyal to us over the years and to say “hey, howdy!” to some new communities that have joined us recently. You can find the full list of events: https://smash.gg/launchleague/details. Have fun!
start.gg / smash.gg Merch
We also have a merch shop set up within on this League event with some new start.gg merch. Check out our initial designs! You’ll be able to buy some starting next week.
Finally, and on a sadder note, we will be discontinuing sales of original smash.gg merch. HOWEVER, we still have a bit of stock left over, so we are offering NOSTALGIA BOXES filled to the brim with what’s left of our original smash.gg merch. There are mousepads, drink cozies, pencils, keychains, all sorts of wild and weird promotional goodies and the price is phenomenally low. These are seriously limited, so first come, first serve. Those can be found RIGHT NOW in the Launch League shop.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is changing?
Our name and logo will be changing! We want to improve overall stability and performance of the site, of course. Beyond that we hope to create entirely new spectator experiences that will make smash.gg the best place in the world to not only play in tournaments, but to watch events and stay-up-to-date on the latest information. We also believe that what makes communities great are the stories that are told through play, and we are going to add new features to help you establish and share your competitive identity and your accomplishments.
What is not changing?
Our primary focus is the FGC and is going to continue to be the FGC. We seriously love you all and our goal is to make sure that you have the best tournament platform, period. You are going to start seeing some ads in smash.gg eventually, but that is likely the extent of it. We believe that one of the best parts of smash.gg is that it is a free resource for the community, and we stay committed to that.
Will old links and email addresses still work?
Yes, you’ll always be able to reach us at hello@smash.gg and URLS like http://smash.gg/ecx will still work.
What is the new name and logo?
What happens to old merch?
Finally, and on a sadder note, we will be discontinuing sales of original smash.gg merch. HOWEVER, we still have a bit of stock left over, so we are offering NOSTALGIA BOXES filled to the brim with what’s left of our original smash.gg merch. There are mousepads, drink cozies, pencils, keychains, all sorts of wild and weird promotional goodies and the price is phenomenally low. These are seriously limited, so first come, first serve.
https://smash.gg/launchleague/shop
How are you celebrating the new brand?
We are also thrilled to announce that we are kicking off a series of sponsored events to celebrate our launch! We are partnering with Panda, CEO, Combo Breaker, VoiD, Sajam, and other amazing partners to up the excitement at existing events and introduce some new ones. Our friends at Xbox Game Pass are also running events for Gears, Halo, Forza, and other Microsoft Studios titles. It’s just our way of saying thank you to the communities that have been loyal to us over the years and to say “hey, howdy!” to some new communities that have joined us recently. You can find the full list of events: https://smash.gg/launchleague/details. Have fun!
When will the new brand take effect?
May 16th!
Are there any new features?
Yes! Read about our Player experience improvements, our new Search and Discovery functionality, and plans for the Write API:
LOGO UPDATE
Well, hello again! We have another update for you, this one is pretty short. We aren’t quite ready to reveal our new name but we do want to share our new logo:
What do you think? Look at those sleek lines, the simplicity, the . . . ambiguity of it all. Hey, we know a logo is just a thing, but this thing is pretty fun for our designers to play with. We have a whole new visual system that allows us to incorporate the logo in nifty ways. Check out this “expanded bracket” look:
The logo is intended to represent competition between two forces, red and blue in this example, but we can modify the colors to align to the colors of a particular team or, for a match, the colors of two opposing teams:
We welcome your feedback. Let us know what you think!
In other news, we have some updates on the features we will be releasing. We are thrilled to announce that we have completed work on our initial release of a write API to complement our existing read API. This API will allow developers to create experiences that allow for entering tournaments, reporting match results, and more. We have a small internal group of partners already playing with the API in closed beta and hope to announce some cool stuff soon.
It’s getting pretty close to May 16th! More updates coming soon.
REBRAND UPDATE
Sup gamers,
The last year or so has been a wild ride for everyone at smash.gg. We recently celebrated the 1st anniversary of our acquisition by Microsoft and we have been very busy working with the Microsoft WebXT Esports team to connect smash.gg to various Microsoft platforms, shore up privacy, security, and accessibility, and make bold plans for the future.
And that’s what we’re here to share with you today: the future of smash.gg. Well, future of “smash.gg” might not be entirely accurate, because what we are announcing today is that we are going to change the name of smash.gg to . . . well, we aren’t going to tell you that just yet, but suffice to say that we really hope you are going to love our new name. We have been working with prominent TOs and players, to come up with a name that is inclusive of all the many games played on the platform, you know, the stuff that isn’t Melee and Ultimate. We love the Melee and Ultimate crowd, of course, and it’s because of your dedication to the platform that we are where we are today, but the FGC is full of other terrific titles, with new ones arriving all the time (anyone else excited about Multiversus?) and there are many more games outside of FGC that use smash.gg as well, like Rocket League, Gears of War, and Pokémon Unite, to name a few.
Another big reason for changing the name of the platform is that it signals a new chapter in the development of smash.gg. The acquisition has opened some phenomenal opportunities for us, providing us with access to a variety of Microsoft technologies and products. We are already working with the Windows, Xbox, Edge, Bing, and MSN teams to integrate our offerings onto their products. We are developing entirely new experiences for esports fans in partnership with Microsoft Research, and we have outrageous amounts of cloud power available to scale our content experiences to obscene levels. Like we said, it’s been a wild ride and one of the hardest things about it is just trying to choose which of the many opportunities to focus on.
We’re going to share more details about the rebranding and our roadmap in future posts but, for now, we’ll share a few hints at the future, address some potential concerns, and set expectations for what is to come.
FEATURE CHANGES
First off, you might be wondering if smash.gg is going to drastically change. The answer is no, at least not yet. To be fully transparent, being acquired is not a simple or easy process. We had to do a lot of work to become compliant with various Microsoft policies regarding security, privacy, and accessibility. These are all Good Things for you as a customer. It means that you can trust us with your data and we are committed to ensuring that as many people as possible can use smash.gg. The downside of this is that we haven’t been able to work on a lot of the new features we are really excited about. We have plans and we are going to share them with you soon, but in many ways, this is going to be the same smash.gg which you have supported so faithfully all these years. The upside to that is that there won’t be dramatic changes, either. You can expect the new smash.gg to work in most ways just like it always has, for good and for bad.
CURRENT COMMUNITIES
You might have wondered if the acquisition by Microsoft would turn smash.gg into some sort of corporate shill machine for Xbox games. That’s not going to happen. Our primary focus is the FGC and is going to continue to be the FGC. We seriously love you all and our goal is to make sure that you have the best tournament platform, not just for FGC, but best. Platform. Period. We are expanding our support for free-for-all games and team games, but these should be additive to the core functionality that has proven itself in the market. We will be dedicating resources to directly addressing community feature requests, and we encourage you to keep those requests coming. We are listening, and you will see some new initiatives soon to reach out to you and get your feedback on what we should be doing next.
THE FUTURE
Like we said, we have been thinking a lot about what is going to happen next. We have made improvements to improve overall stability and performance of the site, and will continue to invest in this area. Beyond that we hope to create entirely new fans experiences that will make smash.gg the best place in the world to not only play in tournaments, but to be informed and entertained as a fan as well. We know that every pro player started out in the same place: looking at a game and thinking “huh, this looks neat, I think I will try it”. We are committed to helping each and every one of you to progress on your personal path to pro. We also have some fairly top-secret ideas about entirely new ways of competing. We aren’t quite ready to share these yet, but let’s just say, it’s going to be an interesting second year, and hopefully some of these ideas are good ones. 😊
MAKING MONEY
You might also have wondered “well, since Microsoft is buying this, they probably want to make their money back”. Yes, we do need to think about revenue, but that’s just part of having a successful business. You are going to start seeing some ads in smash.gg eventually, but that is likely the extent of it. We believe that one of the best parts of smash.gg is that it is a free resource for the community, and we stay committed to that. We are also looking into how we can help admins / TOs to monetize. Admins are the lifeblood of our platform and we believe that if we can help you to be successful, you will help us to be successful.
So, that’s it for now! We hope you are as excited as we are for what is to come, and we will follow this up with more information in the coming months. We can’t wait to unveil everything on May 16th and hope you will join us for our launch party.
Thanks,
smashgg
