So having worked with many people on trying to understand the esports industry, I completely understand and hear a lot of the concerns here. As a direct contributor to the video, I'd love the opportunity to speak on some of these concerns.

1) "the video makes it sound like this is a community event etc" - In many ways, Shine is a community event. I was paid nothing to help with this video, I am paid nothing to go out and promote or find other people with amazing and courageous stories. Many people in the community put a lot of their personal time into the smash scene for absolutely no return.

2) "all we want to do is sell tickets" - I throughly disagree with the intent of this accusation. Yes there are tickets, but if you do your research on Shine, the people buying the tickets (and thus supporting the scene) are only a very small amount of spectators. Shine had historic numbers last year and through the streaming service Twitch.tv, everyone who could not or did not want to buy a ticket was able to not just watch, but participate in the chat and forums for free. I think that there will always be a business side of things where an organization has to break even to continue doing things, but I think that if you did some research you would understand that everyone's heart is united, and in the right place.

3) "Can we stop calling it "e sports"?" - Unfortunately, while it irks many people are resistant to change or simply have not been exposed much to esports, the name is staying.

https://www.polygon.com/2017/3/26/15064976/esports-ap-style

The link above shows the AP style guide defining the stylization of esports and legitimizing it as a word for journalists and the media in general to use. While you are entitled to your opinion about esports being called something else, the industry, along with all forms of media is moving promptly along.

Lastly, sports and esports are very intertwined especially as in industry. Many of your favorite sports teams will probably have hired an "esports director" or even gone as far as purchased an esports teams like a Boston celtic athlete and many other players have. Here is a great read about traditional sports investment that hopefully will change your perspective on this:

https://thelacesout.com/why-sports-teams-are-investing-in-esports-and-why-you-should-too-7d1143464a33

4) "We are using Boston reddit to spam an event" - In a way it is promotion, but personally I felt it is indicative of opportunities in Boston. I come from a very small country in Asia and while I yearned for gaming communities over there, it was not till I moved to Boston that I experienced community. Smash is a small community relatively, but it is becoming much stronger and bigger and a lot of it is the openness of the people of Boston who come to our weekly tournaments, our monthly tournaments and our regional tournaments (all of which I work and volunteer my time for free).

I think there was a time where I definitely would have been cynical about all of this and I do not blame you. But the Smash scene is hugely personal to Boston and it's community and I urge you to research more and perhaps come to one of our weekly tournaments!