Although the highly anticipated EVO 2020 was scheduled to start this upcoming weekend and run through the rest of July, the fighting game tournament will no longer be held. Capcom is pulling out of the tournament due to allegations against Joey Cuellar, the event's organizer and the former president of EVO.
When coronavirus started affecting the world on a larger scale, EVO 2020 was forced to go online. While the Capcom tournament usually only spans one weekend, due to the online format the organizers decided to spread out the events over each weekend in July. However, it appears that the popular fighting game tournament is going to be cancelled completely.
Joey Cuellar was the president of EVO, and new elements of his conduct have come to light. According to recent allegations, Cuellar pursued young boys during the 1990's and 2000's. Since these issues have been made public, EVO has been dealing with this problem, and on Wednesday, the company announced that Cuellar would be put on administrative leave. On July 2, EVO told the public that it had removed him from the organization altogether and he would no longer be working for the company.
With all of these events going on, especially in the wake of many accusations of sexual misconduct against many gamers in the industry as well as streamers, Capcom decided to pull out of the tournament. Since this was an event that was planned by the man who was accused of being a predator, the game company felt that it would be the right course of action to back out of EVO 2020. The investigation is currently ongoing, and Capcom is attempting to make sure that it does not make this any more difficult than it needs to be while respecting those affected. While Capcom is apologetic to players and fans who were excited for the tournaments, the company stands firm in its decisions.
While this is disappointing for the community, these are steps that need to be taken in order to try to keep people safe at future events. Though fans of games like Soulcalibur 6 and Killer Instinct may not be happy with this decision, there will be more events that they can be played in the future.