Bandai Namco Entertainment have announced the Japan Fighting Game Publishers Roundtable, a likely alternative to the cancelled EVO Online for fighting game news.
On July 2nd EVO Online was cancelled, due to multiple allegations of sexual harassment and abuse made against co-founder and then CEO Joey “MrWizard” Cuellar and other prominent members of the fighting game community. Cuellar, Nairoby “Nairo” Quezada, and Richard “Keitaro” King later confessed the allegations were true.
As the allegations came to light, multiple publishers and developers pulled support for the event, meaning EVO would have had very few game tournaments even if it had run. It is likely we would have seen announcements regarding updates, DLC, and new games during the event.
Now, several Japanese publishers have announced their own event focusing on fighting game related news. 4Gamer reports (Translation: Google Translate) that Bandai Namco Entertainment are hosting the Japan Fighting Game Publishers Roundtable.
Along with Bandai Namco Entertainment, Ark System Works, Arika, SNK Corporation, Capcom, and Koei Tecmo Games will be partaking in a livestream; premiering August 1st at 9:00 a.m JST (July 31st 5 p.m. PDT).
Guests will include the following:
- Daisuke Ishiwatari – Ark System Works’ General Director of the Guilty Gear series
- Kazutoshi Sekine – Ark System Works’ General Battle Director
- Ryo Nishitani – Arika’s Producer of Fighting EX Layer
- Yasuyuki Oda – SNK Corporation Producer
- Nobuyuki Kuroki – SNK Corporation Director
- Shuhei Matsumoto – Capcom’s Producer of Street Fighter V
- Takayuji Nakayama – Capcom’s Direector of Street Fighter V
- Yohei Shinbori – Koei Tecmo Games’ Producer of Dead or Alive 6
- Katsuhiro Harada – Bandai Namco Entertainment’s Tekken series Chief Producer
- Motohiro Okubo – Bandai Namco Entertainment’s Producer of Soulcalibur VI
Harada had previously proposed if he should stream upcoming announcements on Twitch, after the cancellation of EVO Online. It may be he was discussing this event, or his desire to share news via a livestream was later shared with other publishers.
The Japan Fighting Game Publishers Roundtable premieres July 31st 5 p.m. PDT across the YouTube channels for Tekken, Arc System Works, Capcom Fighters JP, and Dead or Alive.