“We are proud of our legacy with Evo that started 5 years ago,” said RTS CEO Stuart Saw in a statement. “We’re going to continue investing in the things that matter to our community, elevating and empowering members of the FGC and working diligently with our game developer partners to ensure that Evo benefits all involved parties”

Despite QIC—an investment fund for Qiddiya City—having a stake, EVO’s schedule for the rest of 2026 doesn’t seem to have seen any changes. According to the press release, the event will be on track for its major tournaments taking place in Tokyo, Japan, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Nice, France. Along with this, RTS has also noted that the tournament’s traditions, values, and identity will “remain unchanged, with a continued focus on serving players, fans and publishers at every level of the industry.”

“Evo is a global gaming institution, built on community, competition, and creativity,” said QIC’s chief strategy officer Muhannad AlDawood. “Through RTS and Qiddiya City, we 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.”

RTS first became a stakeholder in EVO as part of a deal it had made alongside PlayStation to purchase the event in 2021. August 2025 would see the latter sell its stakes to Nodwin Gaming. QIC would get involved in the deal at around the same time, originally only investing in RTS before eventually fully acquiring the company.

The fighting game community has been quite outspoken in its criticisms of this deal, with many posts on Reddit calling out Saudi Arabia’s attempts at sportswashing – a method of laundering the country’s reputation by hosting major tourist-attractions and events. One poster went as far as to say that “Evo is dead. Go to your locals,” referring to local tournaments that often form the foundations around which entire fighting game communities are formed.

Some have also taken to suggesting other major tournaments that should get more attention from members of the fighting game community, both in terms of participation as well as viewership. Among these is CEO Gaming-formerly Community Effort Orlando-and Combo Breaker, among many others.

“Support your locals any way you can, folks,” wrote another Reddit user. “I was already on my way out of Evo because I don’t like how corporate the scene has become. I don’t even want fighting games to be a scene anymore, just play and watch the games you like, give feedback that you care about, and growth will come organically.”

Another major investment by Saudi Arabia in the gaming industry recently has been its ongoing acquisition of EA.

All eyes are on Street Fighter 5, Capcom’s latest entry in their long running flagship fighting game franchise, which seems to be breaking all sorts of records at EVO, the world’s premier fighting game tournament- but Nintendo’s mega crossover fighter, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, is doing pretty damn good for itself too.

EVO today announced that this year’s tournament for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U at EVO is the single largest Smash tournament that EVO has ever hosted- and considering just how big some Smash showings at EVO have been, that is a truly mind boggling statistic.

The best part is, this isn’t even the entirety of the Smash community represented- there is a thriving community that is still playing the venerable 2001 Gamecube exclusive Super Smash Bros. Melee, with more than a thousand players still signing up for the Melee tournament too.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is available exclusively on the Wii U. A handheld counterpart developed for the Nintendo 3DS is also available.

Evo has just broken yet another record! Super Smash Bros. for WiiU is officially the biggest smash tournament ever! https://t.co/4kBRLyj2OC

— Evo (@Evo) May 31, 2016