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What was previously the world’s most influential fighting game tournament has been hit with massive scandals. The CEO and founder of the tournament has been removed and EVO Online has been cancelled as a result.
Joey “MrWizard” Cueller Fired as EVO CEO
Joey Cueller, who goes by the moniker MrWizard, was fired after multiple sexual abuse and misconduct claims against him were made public. Accusers claimed that Cueller would frequently pay underage boys to strip naked and perform acts for payment at Cueller’s arcades. Sexual misconduct claims stretch for most of Cueller’s career as head of the Evolution tournament staff, with some as recent as 2015
Most damning is the claim that many prominent members of the fighting game community were seemingly aware of Cueller’s behavior and refused to stop it, or even participated in hiding it, fearing that if it became known it could spell the end of EVO or even the organized fighting game community.
Sponsors, Players, and Community Members Respond
Within hours of the accusations being made public, Cueller was removed as CEO of the EVO tournament organization. Well known players and games pulled themselves from the tournament, including Capcom (Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom), Netherrealms (Mortal Kombat), SonicFox (champion player, member of multiple communities), James Chen (famous fighting game commentator), and so on.
As a result of this, Tony Cannon, the new CEO, announced that EVO Online would be cancelled and refunds would be issued. This comes mere days before the online exhibitions were set to take place.
What this means for the Fighting Game Community
It is unclear exactly how far this will go as of writing. Fans of the fighting game community will certainly have plenty of people and events to rally around in the future, but what those events look like and who will be involved in organizing and participating in them is yet to be known.
All of this strikes a personal chord with me. I have always been proud to be a member of the fighting game community. I have talked about these games at length, I have always wanted more people to join. For me to find out that influential members of my community acted in this way, and that many ignored that behavior for their own convenience, is both shocking and worrying. However, in the midst of this I am happy to see many more members taking a stance against MrWizard and his behavior. Of personal note, I want to thank @SonicFox for being a leader during all of this.
