The Community Tournament Guidelines for Rocket League have been updated and they contain some big changes for players and organisers of tournaments and other events based on the game.

These changes have been summarised with the following:

• “Increased the prizing and appearance fee cap from $5,000 to $15,000 per event
• Removed the annual prizing cap of $50,000
• Crowdfunding is no longer restricted to only funding the prize pool (however, it still must remain within the compensation cap of $50,000)
• All players must be at least 15 years old (or such other age, if greater, as may be required in such player’s country of residence)
• The full list of restricted sponsors is now publicly available for reference
• Clarification on the use of Rocket League marks and tournament branding
• Clarification on permitted formats and length of tournaments”

Those who want to dig into the further details of this list can read the Community Tournament Guidelines in full here.

Those big Dollar amounts are what most people are probably drawn to which promises much higher amounts of money circulating in these events.

What’s interesting is that money to fund events will usually come from sponsors, but there are limits on what these sponsors can be.

Developer Psyonix and publisher / owner Epic Games do provide information about what kind of sponsors are restricted, but doesn’t provide any other companies by name, instead restricting what areas those sponsors can come from.

The list includes a lot of products and services you’d expect which have also been banned in other esports and regular sports too: tobacco (including vapes), alcohol, firearms, pornography, gambling, politics, high toll phone services and more are all restricted and business offering them cannot sponsor Rocket League events.

What was less expected is that energy drinks are also restricted. Energy drink companies like Monster and Red Bull are rather common sponsors in the worlds of esports and sports with competitors even consuming them personally when not sponsored.

Sure to cause an uproar, however, is that anything involving cryptocurrency is also not allowed.

“Your tournament cannot include any marketing, promotion, endorsement, or sponsorship of any of the entities, products, or services on… (viii) cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), or any other blockchain-related product or service,” the guidelines read.

Epic Games has made it public that it’s open to blockchain games so we’re a bit surprised to see this restriction. Then again more and more companies are calling NFTs scams and shams, so maybe it’s for the better.

The strangest inclusion in the restriction list, we think, is on companies selling cars. We really can’t think of a good reason why this would be. Even if Psyonix and Epic Games are weirdly into public transport, the restricted “automotive companies” still make products like busses. We’re going to chalk this up to weird internal legal shenanigans instead of a strange moral call on the part of these companies.