Community Effort Orlando (often shortened to CEO) is an annual

fighting game A fighting game, also known as a versus fighting game, is a genre of video game that involves combat between two or more players. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as blocking, grappling, counter-attacking, and chaining atta ...

event held in Daytona Beach, Florida. Prior to 2018, CEO was held in Orlando, Florida. Introduced in 2010 and organized by Alex Jebailey, the event is known for its strong ties to the

fighting game community The fighting game community, often abbreviated to FGC, is a collective of video gamers who play fighting games such as '' Marvel vs. Capcom'', ''Mortal Kombat'', '' Soulcalibur'', '' Street Fighter'', '' Guilty Gear'', '' The King of Fighters'' ...

. Fighting game players compete in a

wrestling ring A wrestling ring is the stage on which a professional wrestling match usually occurs. It is similarly constructed to a boxing ring and is traditionally square-shaped. Configuration and construction The configuration and construction of the trad ...

during the event's tournaments, and CEO has been a mainstay of the

Capcom Pro Tour The Capcom Pro Tour is a series of international fighting game tournaments sponsored by video game developer Capcom. The Pro Tour culminates in the annual Capcom Cup, a single-day tournament held in the San Francisco Bay Area. 2014 Capcom Cup 20 ...

since its establishment in 2014. An annual side-event titled CEOtaku was initiated in 2015.

Background

Described in 2016 as one of the biggest

events in the United States by ''Red Bull'', CEO has been running annually since 2010 and has grown exponentially every year. Organized by Alex Jebailey, the event is known primarily for emphasizing community spirit. Jebailey's goal as CEO is to ensure the entertainment of all its attendees. The event has an "infamous"

in which tournament players compete and those who reach the finals make "

WWE World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and var ...

style entrances". Jebailey himself has been interested in video game competition since 1993, when he won a local ''

Street Fighter II Turbo ''Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting'' is a competitive fighting game released by Capcom for arcades in 1992. It is the third arcade version of '' Street Fighter II'', part of the '' Street Fighter'' franchise, following '' Street Fighte ...

'' tournament on the

Super Nintendo Entertainment System The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a Fourth generation of video game consoles, 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South ...

. He has competed in various tournaments during the 1990s and 2000s, including '' Mortal Kombat'' and ''

Killer Instinct ''Killer Instinct'' is a series of fighting video games originally created by Rare and published by Midway, Nintendo, and Microsoft Studios. The original ''Killer Instinct'' was released for arcades in 1994; the game was then released for ...

'' competitions, as well as professional

trading card game A collectible card game (CCG), also called a trading card game (TCG) among other names, is a type of card game that mixes strategic deck building elements with features of trading cards, introduced with '' Magic: The Gathering'' in 1993. Genera ...

contests. Here, he got the inspiration and experience to become a tournament organizer. Jebailey joined

Iron Galaxy Iron Galaxy Studios, LLC is an American video game developer studio founded on August 14, 2008, and based in Chicago, Illinois, with a second studio in Orlando, Florida that was opened in 2012 and a third studio in Austin, Texas. Iron Galaxy ...

in 2014.

History

2010–2013

In 2010, there was a fighting game event that was "supposed to" happen in Orlando, but things did not come together until Alex Jebailey was assigned as Tournament Organizer three weeks prior to when the event was planned. He named the event Community Effort Orlando, managed the tournament brackets on his own, and ran the stream with one colleague. Florida was not known for having an active fighting game community, though the 2010 open tournament totaled 300 players. CEO was held on June 10–12 in 2011. ''

Orlando Business Journal American City Business Journals, Inc. (ACBJ) is an American newspaper publisher based in Charlotte, North Carolina. ACBJ publishes The Business Journals, which contains local business news for 44 markets in the United States, Hemmings Motor News ...

'' reported in 2012 that CEO was growing steadily, having reached 1,600 attendees and 30,000 online viewers. Jebailey stated that his presence on social media such as

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...

has allowed the event to grow in size. At this point, CEO was part of the "

Road to Evo A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types of ...

" series of major ranking events. CEO 2013 had over 1,800 attendees. The day after winning a CEO tournament, ''

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a crossover fighting video game developed by Capcom in collaboration with Eighting. The game features characters from both Capcom's video game franchises and comic book series published by Marvel Comics. It was released for the PlayStation 3 ...

'' player Noel Brown was arrested for domestic abuse after attacking a fellow tournament player.

2014

CEO was held on June 27–29 in 2014 and was one of the ten Premier Events of the first annual

, meaning that high-ranking players of the ''

Ultra Street Fighter IV is a 2008 fighting game published by Capcom, who also co-developed the game with Dimps. It was the first original main entry in the series since ''Street Fighter III'' in 1997, a hiatus of eleven years. The coin-operated arcade game version was ...

'' tournament at CEO could qualify for the 2014 Capcom Cup. CEO 2014 was also sponsored by One Frame Link, and Jebailey sold CEO-themed T-shirts based on the various games played during the event in order to crowdfund the prize pool of each tournament.

2015

CEO, taking place on June 26–28, was one of the sixteen Capcom Pro Tour events of the 2015 season, and the winner of its ''Ultra Street Fighter IV'' tournament automatically qualified for the

2015 Capcom Cup Capcom Cup 2015 was a professional ''Ultra Street Fighter IV'' video game tournament that was held at Moscone Center in San Francisco on December 6, 2015. 32 players qualified for the tournament by winning one of the 16 Capcom Pro Tour Premier Even ...

. Capcom revealed the first playable demo of ''

Street Fighter V ''Street Fighter V'' is a fighting game developed by Capcom and Dimps and published by Capcom for PlayStation 4 and Windows in 2016. An arcade version exclusive to Japan was released by Taito in 2019. Similar to the previous games in the ''Stre ...

'' at CEO 2015. Held at the Wyndham Orlando Resort, CEO 2015 brought in over 3,000 attendees. At the CEO 2015 ''Ultra Street Fighter IV'' tournament, well-known players such as Infiltration,

Tokido , better known as Tokido, is a Japanese fighting game player who plays the ''King of Fighters'' and '' Street Fighter'' franchises. He is known for playing multiple fighting games on a competitive level in addition to Street Fighter, including '' ...

Yusuke Momochi Yusuke Momochi, better known as Momochi, is a Japanese professional fighting game player, particularly of ones in the ''Street Fighter'' series by Capcom. Momochi won the Capcom Cup 2014 championship, as well as winning the EVO 2015 title for ''U ...

, and

Daigo Umehara is a Japanese arcade fighting video game player. He specializes in 2D arcade fighting games, mainly those released by Capcom. Known as "Daigo" or "The Beast" in the West and or "Ume" in Japan, Daigo is one of the world's most famous ''Street Fi ...

were all eliminated before reaching the finals. The tournament was won by

Kazunoko better known by this nickname Kazunoko (かずのこ), is a Japanese fighting games player known for playing Holy Order Sol in '' Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R'', Yun in ''Street Fighter IV'', Cammy in ''Street Fighter V'', Yamcha in ''D ...

, who beat 801 Strider in the winner's bracket semi-final and defeated Fuudo in the Grand Final. As a response to the consistent success of ''

Super Smash Bros. ''Super Smash Bros.'' is a crossover fighting game series published by Nintendo. The series was created by Masahiro Sakurai, who has directed every game in the series. The series is known for its unique gameplay objective which differs from ...

''-player

ZeRo 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation such as the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, 0 also serves as a placeholder numerical digit, which works by multiplying digits to the left of 0 by the radix, usu ...

throughout the 2015 season, Jebailey gave out a prize to whoever could knock him out of the CEO 2015 tournament. As a response, '' Smashboards'' owner Chris "AlphaZealot" Brown added more money to the "bounty". Regardless, ZeRo won the tournament, defeating

Nairo Nairo is a given name. Nairo may refer to: * Nairo Quintana (born 1990), Colombian cyclist * Nairo (gamer), the gamertag of American gamer Nairoby Quezada {{Short pages monitor