Liquid’s Hungrybox has spoken out about being blamed for the “death” of Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl.
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl was released in Oct. 2021 and got off to an incredible start with many popular streamers attracting a player base to the game. But since its fast pace at the beginning, the game’s player base has dropped considerably, averaging just 20 concurrent players this month.
One of the people being blamed for Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl’s vast drop-off is Hungrybox, who has now defended himself on Twitter.
“I can’t tweet anything about NASB without people blaming me for its death,” Hungrybox said. “I used my platform to host its biggest tournament and hype it up extensively. I held a $5,000 circuit for it while I was at Summit to try and breathe some life into it. I was even going to stream it for a week.”
One of the primary reasons people have gone to critique Hungrybox is because he popularized the term “Smash Killer.” At the height of its popularity, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl had become known as the “Smash Killer” because of its many similarities to Smash. At first, the “Smash killer” term was viewed in a positive light because of its potential to shake up the competitive scene due to its developer support. Once viewership declined, however, the “Smash killer” phase quickly became a meme in the community.
“I genuinely enjoyed the game and thought Nigel was one of the coolest fighting game chars I’ve ever used,” Hungrybox said. “It’s just that people point fingers at content creators instead of realizing where the game actually failed. You think one person dictates an entire game’s scene?”
Hungrybox’s initial tweet has gone on to receive a lot of support from those blaming the content creator for the game’s demise. Nowadays, a lot of the “Smash Killer” attention has gone towards Warner Bros.’s newest fighting game, MultiVersus, which surpassed 10 million active players in its short lifespan because of its free-to-play model and $100,000 prize pool at Evo 2022.
Regardless, many view the “Killer” moniker in a negative light because of the troubles experienced by Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. Let’s hope that Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is able to make a resurgence once again.
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is currently available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC
