The following is a blog post I originally wrote as a Giant Bomb community blog back in 2015. With the fate of the site being uncertain as of 2025, I decided to port the post back here so it’s available somewhere besides that site. I’ve adjusted some of the text, and added some more info where appropriate.
Yesterday, I decided to casually watch a tournament for the humans vs monster game Evolve. I’ve watched tournaments before, many Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournaments, an International or two, but this one was different.
This one was called “The CHAPPiE Challenge,” sponsored by the upcoming movie of the same name coming out in theaters this week. It’s a standard esports tournament for Evolve, where a team of four players will fight one chosen player from the other team as the monster, of which either the objective must be completed by the monster or the monster must be defeated by the humans. Winning team nets $15,000, which is not bad for a tournament of this level.
As for Evolve the game, I thought it seemed interesting until the whole fiasco involving the many editions and DLC packs the game has. That, it didn’t seem like it was worth the $60 price tag to me, and they didn’t even bother making a five-pack for the PC version for my friends.
However, something that they were advertising really put me off. The winning team would not only win the cash prize, but would do one final match with “CHAPPiE” himself. Naturally it wasn’t the robot from the movie, but merely a developer of the game playing as him, with occasional cuts of CHAPPiE taunting or getting angry.
What makes this especially weird is how they played this off as it was really happening. CHAPPiE was there and fighting against these actual people, he only knew what he learned of the game from “playing it for a few hours,” that sort of thing. In-between games they were doing trailers and featurettes for the movie. This tournament was clearly a blatant advertisement for CHAPPiE, with Evolve taking a backseat for this silly event.
Now, I’m used to sponsored events. CS:GO tournaments are always advertised by online casinos, snack chips and Razer gaming hardware. I fully expect a sporting event, whether it be something like Football or Baseball; or an eSports event like this to have corporate sponsorship of some fashion. But Evolve and “The CHAPPiE Challenge” just felt incredibly gross for me to watch, even from a spectator’s point of view. Worse off, it’s not even like CHAPPiE or a character from that movie was in there as a tie-in, it just feels incongruous as a result.
Had they omitted the dumb fight against CHAPPiE, I would’ve been okay with it since then it would be a standard esports tournament. But they pushed it just over that line that it just felt weird to me. Am I the only one who thinks this, or am I just old and jaded?
Does make me wonder what this game’s esports scene would be like…
2025 Update: Unfortunately, Evolve was a bust. Even with this somewhat questionable promotion, the game was abandoned even after a free-to-play pivot. 2K took control of the game from developer Turtle Rock and shut it down for good around 2023. It did get some extra content, though only if you actually owned the game, it’s since been delisted on all digital storefronts.
As of 5/9/2025, you can watch the aforementioned CHAPPiE Challenge on Evolve’s official YouTube channel. Though, who knows how long that will last.
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