Assault on Capcom eSports producer "Tomoaki Ayano"! I heard the secret story of the birth of esports-free materials!

In recent years, e-sports has been gaining recognition, and the gaming media has started to cover e-sports.
However, when trying to use photos of "e-sports" for news, media, blogs, etc., "specific games" inevitably appear in the photos.
Games have clear copyright holders, and therefore, I believe that the hurdle to using photos as quoted material was felt to be too high.
If that is the case, I thought that if we take the initiative and make it easier to use Capcom's e-sports photos using Street Fighter, they would be more likely to write articles about e-sports.

I saw the same model on various news sites and blogs, and I thought, "I often see this model, but who is she? I looked her up and found out that she was a model named Saya Akane.
That's when I learned about "PakuTaso" and other free photo material sites.
When I looked more closely at the site, I found that "PakuTaso" was producing very interesting projects, both independent and corporate collaborations, and in particular, the concept of "fun to use and fun to look at" was a great match for this project.
I also had an unfounded confidence that there would be demand for "free e-sports photo materials". I had no reason to doubt that there would be a demand for free e-sports photos, and that's why I approached them.

There are many paid stock photo services.
Unfortunately, some e-sports photos distributed for a fee are uploaded and sold without the permission of the copyright holders.
Users cannot judge whether or not the copyright holder's permission is granted.
Therefore, there is no guarantee that you will not receive an advisory for copyright infringement even if you have purchased and used the photos for a fee.
There may be some people who have a value system that says "paid for is safe and free is dangerous," but in reality, it is not that simple.
The handling of photos with games in them is very delicate.
In addition, this project is not about profiting from the distribution of photo materials, but rather about promoting e-sports in the market and encouraging people to enjoy e-sports.
Therefore, we thought that free of charge would be the safest way for people to use e-sports photo materials.

Yes, I did.
There are many free photo material sites, but most of them require a waiver of rights under the CC0 (Creative Commons License). The reason is that PAKUTAZO is a free material site that allows free distribution without waiving rights.

I thought it would be difficult to get permission from various companies to use their copyrighted materials in e-sports events, but surprisingly, they were very cooperative and gave us the OK.
I thought that the players who participated in the tournament might not like the idea of having their images used as free materials, but we were able to get their approval smoothly.

For about a week after the release, we received a good response on social networking sites, especially from the photo of "Momochi," the winner of the CAPCOM Pro Tour Asia Premiere 2019.
ChocoBlanca tweeted, "Momochi is now a free image I can use without worry! It was great to have him tweet "lol".

It has been more than half a year since its release, and we are happy to see it being used in many different places.
We are happy to see it being used in so many places... We have even had non-gaming media use it when they cover e-sports.
We hope you will continue to use it more and more, because it's free! (Laughs)

All of them are my favorites, but I would recommend the one from the back of the venue, where the stage for the games is in the back and the audience is excited.
This is what e-sports is all about! You can feel the realism of e-sports just by looking at it.

Please use e-sports photos safely, securely, and inexpensively for your own creative purposes.
The photos are from 2019, but in 2020, e-sports will be affected by the Corona Disaster without exception.
It will no longer be possible to hold exciting e-sports events with a large audience, which has been the norm in the past.
However, the eSports industry is also gradually shifting to online while searching for a "new form of eSports".
Once a new style is established, we hope to be able to provide new photo materials again!